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The Connecticut Witch Trials

2/28/2020

If I had lived in Salem Massachusetts a little over three hundred years ago, I would most certainly have been accused of witchcraft, and as a result, I probably would have been executed. Why? Well, if you didn’t know -- I’m a ghost hunter. But that’s not all. I read Tarot cards and, in my youth, I used the Ouija board. So let’s face it, the 1600’s, I would have been toast -- Literally. I would have either been burned at the stake or hung.
But what if I didn’t live in Salem back then? What if I lived in my home state of Connecticut. I would have been safe, right? Nope. Capital crimes in 1642 Connecticut included murder, adultery, blasphemy -- and witchcraft. Witchcraft was a criminal offense, and the accused faced criminal prosecution and a trial by jury.
Everyone knows about the Salem witch trials of 1692, but the first person executed for witchcraft in the United States wasn’t from Salem. A young woman named Alse Youngs from Windsor, Connecticut was accused of witchcraft and put on trial. It is not known what Alse did to cause her neighbors to make such wicked accusations. But what we do know is that she was found guilty of witchcraft, and that she was executed by hanging in Hartford, Connecticut on May 26, 1647 and buried in an unmarked grave.
The Connecticut witch trials, also known as the Hartford witch trials, occurred from 1647 until 1663, and they were the first large-scale trials of their kind in the American colonies. During that time period at least 34 people were accused of witchcraft in Connecticut, of which eleven were put to death -- just nine fewer than the number of people executed for witchcraft in Salem.
The Connecticut witch panic and trials are almost unknown to most people, but they are an extremely important and dark part of American history. Whereas the Salem witch panic lasted just seven months, Connecticut’s spanned several decades. And the witch trials in Connecticut were proportionally far more deadly than Salem’s. In Salem, they executed 20 of the 180 women and men brought up on formal witchcraft charges, while in Connecticut 11 out of 34 were executed. In other words, eleven percent of those accused of witchcraft were put to death in Salem, and 32 percent of those accused in Connecticut were executed. So, you had a much better chance of being put to death for witchcraft in Connecticut than in Salem.
But why were people so afraid of witches, and why did they believe in them in the first place? Let’s face it, the thought of women riding around on broomsticks, putting hexes on people, and having animals at their beck and call who did their dirty work seems like nothing more than a bunch of dark fairy tales. But keep in mind, the first settlers in America came from England, and in Europe approximately 40,000 people were put to death for witchcraft over a 200 year period.
Belief in witchcraft was common in England. In fact, ‘white witches’ and ‘white wizards’ known as ‘cunning folk’ or ‘blessing witches’ were well respected in many English communities. In an age where medicine was largely unknown or unavailable, practitioners of white witchcraft were often successful in healing the sick by using folk-remedies and herbs. White witches were also called upon to help identify enemies in the community through various methods of divination.
While white witches were credited with curing sick children and animals, ‘black’ witches were thought to inflict sickness and death. One function of a white witch was to protect the community from the evil doings of black witches. They did this through the use of dolls stuck with pins. The dolls were called ‘poppets’ and the pins weren’t meant to actually harm the black witch; they were used to neutralize her spells and to protect the community from further harm.
The Puritans were fiercely religious, conservative, and intensely intolerant of other beliefs or religions. They also suffered many hardships in the New World including epidemics, starvation, death of livestock, hard winters, and Indian attacks. Witchcraft was often the scapegoat for these hardships because belief in witchcraft was as common as the belief in God. If you believed in God, then you had to believe in the devil; and people firmly believed that witchcraft was just one way that Satan wielded his power.
Today, a lot of evidence must be shown before someone is put on trial for a crime. But in colonial times it took just a single accusation of witchcraft to get the ball rolling. Very little was known about medicine in the seventeenth-century, so witchcraft was often blamed for people getting sick or dying. Women were midwives, so if a mother or child died in childbirth, the midwife was often to blame--and sometimes she was accused of being a witch.
In colonial times, livestock was the most important possession a person could have. If livestock behaved oddly or died, there had to be a reason. Sometimes the reason was thought to be witchcraft. In one case, a woman came into the yard of her neighbor. When asked what she wanted, she said that she just wanted to see their new calf. At the time, the calf was reported to have been secured to a heavy post that was driven into the ground, but after the woman left it somehow pulled the post from the ground and ruined a crop of corn. Because of this, the woman was accused of being a witch. Of course, any logical person would suppose that it wasn’t the woman’s fault; most likely, the post just wasn’t secured deep enough in the ground.
God help those with mental illness in colonial Connecticut. One of the accused had a habit of talking to herself, and based on the testimonies of her neighbors, the old woman was obviously mentally unstable. She was a feisty old woman, and probably not very nice. One of her neighbors testified that she once heard the old woman muttering to herself. When she asked her who she was talking to the old woman snapped back, “I was talking to you”. Now, obviously this was a snarky reply meant to imply, “Mind your own business”, but it was taken as a sign that the ‘witch’ was attempting to put a curse on the woman.
Alse Young was the first person in Connecticut to be put to death for witchcraft. The second person to be convicted, and the first to confess, was Mary Johnson of Wethersfield. Mary was working as a house servant in Hartford, Connecticut in 1646, where she was accused of theft. She moved to Wethersfield, where she also worked as a servant, and in 1647 she was once again accused of theft and was whipped for her crime by the local minister. During her punishment, Mary Johnson confessed that “a devil was wont to do her many services”. She also confessed to “uncleanness with men and Devils” and that she had murdered a child. Mary was convicted on December 7, 1648 for “familiarity with the Devil” and imprisoned in Hartford, Connecticut. While in prison awaiting her execution, it was discovered that she was pregnant. Her execution was delayed, and after the birth of her son she was hanged in June of 1650.
Why did Mary Johnson confess if she wasn’t actually a witch? Religion was so ingrained in people’s lives that any moral weakness was viewed as a sin. Women often confessed that they were tempted by Satan to do things that were considered morally wrong. Men, on the other hand, rarely aired their inner conflicts and guilty feelings. Women were sexually repressed, so a woman having sexual desires was considered sinful. Having sex outside of marriage was deemed a mortal sin, so adultery was often blamed on the devil’s influence. As for Mary’s confession of murdering a child, it is likely that she felt responsible for the death of a child who was in her care, and that she considered it murder. Or, it’s possible that she had had a miscarriage and that she blamed herself for the child’s death.
Less than three years after Mary Johnson was put to death, the first husband-and-wife couple were accused of witchcraft--Wethersfield residents John Carrington and his wife Joan. Details of the accusations against the couple are scarce, but the indictment read: “Thou art indicted by the name of John Carrington of Wethersfield, carpenter, that not having the fear of God before thine eyes thou hast entertained familiarity with Satan, the great enemy of God and Mankind; and by his help has done works above the course of nature, according to the laws of God and the established laws of this commonwealth thou deservest to die.” The same indictment was handed down to his wife. On March 6, 1651 the couple was found guilty of witchcraft, and soon after they were hanged in Hartford.
In 1664, Lydia Gilbert of Windsor, Connecticut was charged with witchcraft. The accusations against her were bizarre to say the least. In 1651, Lydia and her husband Thomas took in a boarder named Henry Stiles. Henry was probably Thomas Gilbert’s employer, and Lydia kept house for him during the time he boarded with them.
On November 3, 1651, Henry and a neighbor named Thomas Allyn were participating in training exercises with a group of militiamen. During the exercises, Allyn’s gun went off accidentally. The bullet hit Henry and killed him. A trial was held, and Allyn was found guilty of “homicide by misadventure”. He was fined 20 pounds and ordered not to bear arms for one year.
Although this seemed to be the end of the story, it wasn’t. After the trial, the people of the community continued to try to understand how such an accident could have occurred. Soon, rumors began to spread and Lydia Gilbert was soon accused of playing a part in Henry’s death. On March 25, 1654--a full three years after Henry’s accidental death--Lydia was accused by her neighbors of practicing witchcraft. Not only that, they also said that she had used her evil powers to cause the musket of Thomas Allyn to discharge.
A trial was held, and a panel of jurors were assembled. Six of those on the panel were residents of Windsor who were well aware that Thomas Allyn had been convicted of accidentally killing Stiles, but Lydia was still found guilty. Though there are no written records that tell Lydia’s ultimate fate, most historians believe that she was hanged at Hartford. This is due to the fact that records show that Thomas Gilbert moved to present day Glastonbury, Connecticut shortly after her trial and quickly remarried.
We often hear of the witchcraft panic that swept across seventeenth-century New England, but what exactly is a panic? A panic is defined as a “number of linked cases forming a chain reaction” (*). By 1662, witchcraft accusations in Hartford had spread at an alarming rate and that year the witch hunting hysteria culminated in seven trials and four executions.
It all started on March 23, 1662 when 8-year-old Elizabeth Kelly died. She had been in good health until after spending a day with a neighbor, Goodwife Ayers also known as “Goody” Ayers. The next day, Ayers came to the house and shared a bowl of broth with the girl. That night the girl became sick, most likely with bronchial pneumonia, and her high fever made her delusional. She reportedly exclaimed, “Help me! Goodwife Ayres is upon me. She chokes me. She kneels on my belly. She will break my bowels. She pinches me. She will make me black and blue.” The little girl’s parents, John and Bethia Kelly, suspected that the devil was at work, and they became convinced that their daughter had been struck down by witchcraft at the hands of Goody Ayers.
The Kelly’s brought their concerns about Ayers to the town officials and she was summoned to the side of the dead girl who was laid out in her parents’ home. The corpse was examined, and it was found that there were bruises on her shoulders and upper arms. These bruises seemed to correspond to the child’s ravings when she said that Goody Ayers “will me me black and blue”. According to reports, during the examination of the body, a red spot appeared on the dead child’s cheek nearest to where Ayers was standing. Of course, this was taken as a sign of Ayers being a witch.
The local magistrates summoned physician Bray Rossiter to examine the body. Because of the distance he had to travel, it took several days for the autopsy to take place. Onhand was an assistant and six witnesses. The doctor concluded that Elizabeth had not died of natural causes. He stated that the body was pliable without any of the stiffness that should have been present. He reported that the girl’s throat contained a large amount of blood, and it was stiff and hard. In his medical report, he swore that Elizabeth Kelly had suffered “unnatural harm”. Hartford residents interpreted this to mean that Goody Ayers was a witch.
For whatever reason, Goody was not immediately imprisoned, so she and her husband William wasted no time in skipping town to avoid a certain death sentence. They abandoned their eight-year-old son and left behind all of their possessions. The couple most likely fled to New York or Rhode Island since neither state had an extradition treaty with Connecticut.
Around this same time a woman named Ann Cole began to behave strangely. Although she had always been a pious woman, she began convulsing and spewing curses and blasphemy. According to one account Ann “had taken with strange fits wherein she--or rather the devil, as ‘tis judged made use of her lips--held a discourse for a considerable time.” But Ann wasn’t accused of being a witch; she claimed that she was under the spell of her neighbor, Rebecca Greensmith.
The Greensmiths were not well liked by the townspeople. Rebecca was described by her minister, Reverend John Whiting, as being “lewd, ignorant and considerably aged”. Nathaniel was not viewed favorably either. He had had several run-ins with the law. He was accused of stealing a hoe, of stealing one-and-a-half bushels of wheat, of lying in court, and of battery.
Based solely on Ann Cole’s accusations, Rebecca Greensmith was charged with witchcraft and thrown into prison. Ann also gave the names of other people in town who she said were bewitching her. Soon, the accused women began to accuse other women of the town of being the real witches.
In January, 1663, Rebecca Greensmith confessed in court to having “familiarity with the devil”. From her testimony and behavior in court, the woman was clearly mentally unstable. Among other things, she said that at Christmas she and the devil had “a merry meeting” to form a covenant. Greensmith said that she met in the woods with seven other witches who would often come in the form of cats, crows, or other animals. These included Goody Ayers, Mary Sanford, and Elizabeth Seager. She also said that the devil came out of the woods in the form of a deer that skipped around her.
Rebecca also confessed that her husband Nathaniel was involved in witchcraft, and that strange animals or familiars would follow him about in the woods. She claimed that Nathaniel possessed impossible strength; that he could easily place large logs on his wagon, a job that would normally require help from several men. At the trial, neighbors testified that they saw Elizabeth Seager--one of the women Rebecca accused of also being a witch--dancing with other women in the woods at night, and that they were cooking something mysterious in a large black kettle.
Although Rebecca Greensmith confessed to being a witch in court, her husband continued to protest his innocence. But it was no use. Because Rebecca had openly confessed to being a witch, everything she said at the trial was considered to be true. On January 25, 1663, Rebecca and Nathaniel Greensmith were both executed by hanging. Joining them at the Hartford gallows that day was Mary Barnes of Farmington who had also been found guilty of witchcraft. A few days later, Mary Sanford was sent to the gallows. After the executions, Ann Cole was reportedly “restored to health” which only fueled the belief in the community that witchcraft had been the root cause of her malady.
Elizabeth Seager--the woman Rebecca Greensmith accused of being a witch--was also put on trial that same year. She was indicted for witchcraft, blasphemy, and adultery. She pleaded not-guilty to all of the accusations. During the inquiry a neighbor testified:
“I saw this woman, Elizabeth Seager, in the woods with three more women, and with them I saw two black creatures like two Indians but taller. I saw likewise a kettle there over a fire. I saw the women dance round these black creatures. I looked up at the women and smiled at them. One of the women saw me and said, “Look who is yonder!” and then they ran away up the hill. I stood still and the black things came towards me and then I turned to come away.” The witness admitted that he never actually saw the women’s faces, but testified that “I knew the persons by their habits or clothes, having observed such clothes on them not long before.”
Seager was convicted of witchcraft and adultery in 1665 and she was sent to prison to await execution. Luckily, she was eventually set free “on the grounds that the jury’s decision to convict was legally indefensible. The jurymen were furious, and those who believed that Elizabeth Seager was a witch, of whom there were many, made it clear that they felt betrayed.” (*) After her release, the couple and their three children moved to Rhode Island.
The four executions of suspected witches in Hartford were to be Connecticut’s last. (2) Although another witch panic broke out in Fairfield in 1692, only two of the six accused went to trial, and neither were put to death. Connecticut held its final witch trial in 1697, fifty years after Alse Young’s execution. The trial occurred in Wallingford where Winifred Benham and her teenaged daughter--also named Winifred--were accused of witchcraft to cause physical harm to three children of prominent Wallingford families. They were also accused of killing another child by causing her to have ‘spots’ on her body. We now know that the child most likely died of measles. The jury returned a verdict of “not proven” and the case was dismissed.
People continued to accuse their neighbors and relatives of being witches, but these accusations usually ended up with the accused suing for slander, and winning. In 1750 witchcraft was finally taken off of the list of capital offenses in Connecticut.
The executions for witchcraft don’t seem real, do they? Reading about the trials and executions may be disturbing, but because it happened so long ago it almost feels like we’re reading a work of fiction. These poor, innocent men and women don’t seem like real people when we read about them -- but they were. It was reported that as one woman was led to the gallows, she broke free and wrapped her arms around a large boulder, pleading for her life. As she was forcibly dragged away, the skin on her fingers were ripped off leaving bloody trails on the stone. The poor woman continued to cry and plead for her life right up until she dropped through the gallows floor to her death. Just imagine how devastating it must have been to the spouses and children of those executed for witchcraft. I’m sure that husbands fought tooth and nail for their accused wives, trying to talk some sense to the court, but ultimately failing and being forced to watch them hanged for no reason.
In October 2012, descendants of those executed for witchcraft petitioned the Connecticut government to posthumously pardon the victims, but the motion was not passed. On February 6, 2017, the town of Windsor unanimously passed a resolution to symbolically clear the names of the town's two victims, Alse Youngs and Lydia Gilbert. Memorial services were held for the victims of the witch trials in Windsor in June of 2017. The service marked the 370th anniversary of Alse Youngs' execution.
Please remember in your prayers the eleven Connecticut residents who were unjustly executed as witches so long ago: Alyse Youngs (1647), Mary Johnson (1648), Joan Carrington (1651), John Carrington (1651), Goody Basset (1651), Goody Knapp (1653), Lydia Gilbert (1654), Mary Sanford (1662), Rebecca Greensmith (1662), Nathaniel Greensmith (1662), and Mary Barnes (1662)

Resources
https://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/16/nyregion/entertaining-the-devil-in-connecticut.html
https://ctstatelibrary.org/witchcraft-in-connecticut/
https://libguides.ctstatelibrary.org/hg/colonialresearch/witchcraft
https://www.cga.ct.gov/2006/rpt/2006-R-0718.htm
https://www.legendsofamerica.com/witch-hunts-connecticut/
https://www.legendsofamerica.com/alse-young-witch/
http://salem.lib.virginia.edu/17docs.html
The European Witch Hunt (book)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giles_Corey
https://www.history.com/news/before-salem-the-first-american-witch-hunt
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2001/jun/08/artsandhumanities.highereducation
https://www.courant.com/community/windsor/hc-wn-windsor-witch-trials-0608-20170606-story.html
https://www.legendsofamerica.com/mary-johnson-witch/
https://www.courant.com/opinion/op-ed/hc-op-taking-note-buchanan-windsor-witches-0324-20190324-mw6ygw65bjc23pkg6uyqr3bfbi-story.html
https://www.facebook.com/ctwitchmemorial/posts/why-did-rebecca-greensmith-confess-to-being-a-witch-in-an-open-court-particular-/2313572985596922/
https://www.sylviaprincebooks.com/blog/2017/penis-snatching-witches
https://www.legendsofamerica.com/lydia-gilbert-witch/
https://www.onsegermountain.org/witchcraft.html

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The Use of Dolls in Ritualistic Magic

1/28/2020

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What do Barnes and Noble, Walmart, and Target have in common? They all sell Voodoo Dolls! And they’re not the only ones. You can buy Voodoo dolls and kits from literally hundreds of online vendors, and browsing through the plethora of different types of online Voodoo dolls is actually very entertaining. There’s the “Mini Office Voodoo Kit” to put a curse on your boss or co-workers; the “Sports Fan Voodoo Kit” for those who think they need a little extra help in making sure their team wins; the “Valentine Voodoo Doll Kit” and the “Happy Couple Voodoo Doll Kit” to cast love spells; the “Passion Masters Sex Voodoo Doll” and the “Wolfman Stamina Voodoo Doll” to ‘attain massive, animal-like sex stamina’; and my favorite--the “Photo Revenge Voodoo Doll” where you send a photo of your ex, wait for the doll to arrive, then go to town sticking pins in the doll that has your ex’s face on it.

Sympathetic Magic
In order to understand the use of dolls in ritual magic, it’s important to understand the concept of sympathetic magic whereby a magician believes that he can produce any desired physical effect merely by imitating it. In addition, there is the belief that whatever is done to a material object will also be done to the person that it was once in contact with. This is why dolls used in magic rituals are often constructed or decorated with hair, nail-clippings, or pieces of cloth once owned by a person. A perfect example of this is a dolls now housed in the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic. The doll was made in 1953 as a curse against a woman who had connections to the Nazi party. It is made out of cloth, and the gown it wears is made out of material stolen from the woman’s wardrobe. The doll has a dagger through its face and eye. (1)
     The use of dolls in sympathetic magic goes back thousands of years. The melting and burning of ritualistic dolls was written about in great detail in some ancient Greek texts. In ancient Egypt, enemies of Ramses III used wax images of the Pharaoh in rituals to help bring about his death. Greek poppets, known as Kolossoi, were used for various ritual purposes, such as to restrain a ghost, to ward off an evil entity, or as a way to bind lovers together.
Voodoo dolls are the most familiar type of doll used in casting spells and curses, but there are actually a number of different types of dolls used in ritualistic magic and witchcraft.

Poppets
     The oldest examples of dolls stuck with pins and used in ritual magic don’t come from Africa or the Carribean, they originated in Britain where during the middle ages, practitioners of magic called ‘cunning folk’--also known as wizards, wise men or women, or conjurers-- would make cloth dolls made to resemble a person in the community who was thought to be a witch. The doll would be stuck with pins to do the witch harm, and to help break any magic spells she may have put on anyone.
     If you ever get a chance to visit England, be sure to visit the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic in Cornwall. The museum was founded in 1951 by folk magician Cecil Williamson to display his personal collection of occult artifacts. Today, the museum houses the largest collection of objects related to witchcraft and the occult. Among the museums many interesting artifacts is a curious figure--a small, crudely formed female clay doll stuck with four pins. This type of ritualistic doll is known as a poppet, and this particular one appears to be blackened in places as if it had been charred by fire. Two of the pins are stuck in the dolls eyes, one in the throat, and one through the right breast. The poppet once belonged to the museum’s founder, and was made by him as a curse. Who he was cursing, and for what reason is unknown. But what we do know is that poppets such as this are often used in ritual magic and witchcraft.
Poppets are made to represent a person and they’re used to cast spells on that person for good or for evil, or to put a curse on the person. They can be made out of a number of different materials such as carved roots, corn husks, a piece of dried fruit, wax, clay, branches, or cloth. Dolls made out of cloth are often stuffed with herbs or other materials thought to have magical properties. While most dolls are kept close by the person who is casting a spell or curse, others are sometimes lodged in chimneys or other hidden places in a home. Obviously, those poppets who are designed for protection are placed there with full knowledge of the homeowner. Poppets that have a curse on them would be hidden in a home to make sure it is close by its intended victim.

Voodoo Dolls
     Now let’s get one thing straight, Voodoo has very little to do with so called Voodoo dolls. In fact, the name Voodoo isn’t even the actual name of the religion. Vodou (the proper spelling and pronounced VOO-dow or VOE-do) originated in the 17th century French colonial empire among enslaved West Africans. An 1685 law required all slaveholders to Christianize slaves within eight days of their arrival, and this was often Catholicism. Over time, the slaves combined elements of their religious beliefs with Roman Catholicism. Because they were forced to adopt Catholic rituals, slaves gave them double meanings and in the process, many of their African spirits became associated with Christian saints.
     Vodou is a fascinating and complex religion, and although dolls are used in Vodou, they are usually used for good, or for protection against evil, similar to the use of religious statues in churches and homes. Dolls are used for a variety of purposes such as love, healing, guidance, fertility, and empowerment. The color of the doll is associated with its intended purpose.

White -- Healing, purification, positive intentions
Red -- Love, Attraction, Power, Blood
Green -- Money, Growth, Fertility
Yellow -- Success, Confidence
Purple -- Wisdom, Spirit Realm, Intuition
Blue -- Love, Peace, Serenity
Black -- To summon negative intentions and energy or to dispel negative energy

The same colors can also be found on pins which are stuck into a doll to emphasize the intention associated with a particular color.

Fetish Dolls
     When West African slaves were brought to the United States, they retained their religious practices of using dolls. One type of doll that they made was called a “fetish” and it was thought to be possessed by spirits connected to the doll’s owner. The fetish would be worn for good luck, or to access magical powers. Fetish dolls are also used to create a bond between the physical and spiritual worlds. They are also known by the names ‘juju’ and ‘grisgris’. The term ‘grisgris’ also refers to charm bags filled with magical powders, roots, herbs, bones, spices, stones, feathers, and so on. So, grisgris bags are actually a type of magic potion--a combination of ingredients designed to produce an intended outcome. The bags are usually worn by a person, but they are sometimes tied to fetish dolls as part of a spell.

Ndebele dolls
     The Ndebele people of Southern Africa have a rich tradition of using different types of dolls for protection, fertility, and good luck. The Ndebele are known for their brightly colored painted homes and clothing, and their dolls reflect this colorful tradition.
     During courtship, a man will place a doll outside a young woman’s hut which indicates his intention to propose marriage to her. When a woman is preparing to marry, she is given a doll that she names and cares for. When she has her first child, it is given the same name as the doll.

Xhosa Dolls
     Another South African tribe known as the Xhosa are known for their beaded fertility and love dolls. These small dolls which are covered with colorful beadwork. The dolls are believed to have magical powers, and they are worn on a necklace to attract an eligible husband and to increase fertility. A girl is given the doll by her parents during adolescence and she is instructed to take good care of it. If a doll is lost or damaged, there is a risk that her firstborn child will die. After the birth of her first child, the young mother returns the doll to her parents and it is passed on to her younger sister.
     Not all Xhosa dolls are meant to be displayed openly. Love dolls necklaces that are used to attract a husband are made up of a male and a female doll and are only worn at night.
     Other dolls are meant to be seen, and are worn openly. Fertility doll necklaces are openly displayed by married women. They have just one doll attached to them, and they are worn to show both the community and their ancestors their desire to have children.

Native American Kachina Dolls
     Kachinas are both spirits and the personification of things found in the natural world. A kachina can represent anything in the natural world or cosmos. Although kachinas are not worshipped, each is considered to be a powerful being who can use his particular power to help humans. But this can only be done by giving the kachina veneration and respect.
     Kachina dolls are carved in the likeness of the spirit being they represent, and after a ceremony that involves dance and music, the dolls are given to young girls of the village. The dolls are then hung on the walls of the pueblo and are meant to be studied in order to learn the characteristics of each Kachina. In addition to their educational purposes, the dolls are a constant reminder of the kachinas and the powers they have to help those who respect them.

Hoku Dolls
     In Japan, hoku dolls are given to pregnant mothers to protect both the mother and the unborn child. Traditionally, these dolls are made of silk and human hair. Similar dolls are made for boys, but their purpose is different. Hoku dolls for boys would be consecrated and offered at a shrine when the boy ‘comes of age’ at 15 years old. Hoku dolls are also give to young girls who keep them until they married, at which time they give them up at a shrine to assure a happy marriage. Like poppets, hoku dolls grew from a tradition of a doll representing a person. Paper dolls called ‘hina’ were used as ‘stand ins’ for a person in order to take on the brunt of a person’s sins, or misfortunes. (2)

Worry Dolls
     Worry dolls originated in Guatemala, and like Japanese paper hina dolls, it is believed they take away children’s worries so they can sleep at night. Worry dolls are made out of whatever material is available such as sticks, wire, thread, and scraps of fabric. They are often small enough to fit in children’s hands. Parents believe that keeping a worry doll under a child’s pillow or bed will help direct the child’s worries, fears, and bad dreams into the doll. Some people whisper their worries to the doll in private and allow the doll to take on those worries. Psychologically, this makes sense if the ritual is done with reverence and strong belief in the process.

Do Dolls Used in Rituals Really Work?
     Those who use dolls in sympathetic magic and in other similar rituals and practices swear by them, but of course the only evidence we have is anecdotal. Many paranormal books tell tales of people who have been harmed by a curse involving a doll. Others tell stories where people were cured of a variety of illnesses by the use of dolls stuck with pins or adorned with herbs.
     One paranormal website (5) claims that three deaths were the result of a Voodoo-type doll found in a Connecticut home, though there are some serious holes in that story. The first person who died was a woman who was well in her 90s. She was described as being in “failing health” for a number of years before her death. The second person who died was the man who made the dolls. He was also in poor health at the time; and besides, I’m sure he didn’t intentionally curse himself, though his bad intentions may have backfired and caused his death. The third person died of a ruptured spleen. Interestingly, one of the dolls had pins stuck into the spleen area. Then again, the doll with the pin in its spleen was in the shape of a fish, not a person. So, it’s not clear who the intended victim was.

     If you’re interested in experimenting with ritualistic dolls, it’s probably best to keep the Wiccan “Rule of Three” in mind. The rule of three states that whatever energy a person puts out into the world, be it for good or bad, will be returned to that person three-fold. So, using a doll to help heal or to bring joy and happiness to someone should bring you a handsome reward. But be warned--before you go sticking black pins in a doll made to resemble your worst enemy, keep in mind that, in the end, the person you’ll be hurting the most is yourself.

Resources
https://www.learnreligions.com/are-voodoo-dolls-real-95807
https://www.learnreligions.com/what-are-magical-poppets-4072783
https://www.learnreligions.com/sympathetic-magic-2561922
https://voodoodolls.typepad.com/voodoo_dolls/2007/04/a_brief_history.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voodoo_doll
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Vodou
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cunning_folk_in_Britain
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_of_Witchcraft_and_Magic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_Williamson
https://museumofwitchcraftandmagic.co.uk
https://www.livescience.com/40803-voodoo-facts.html
https://www.occultopedia.com/f/fetish.htm
https://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/charleston/the-strange-magic-of-dr-wrens-fetish-dolls/Content?oid=9691040
https://fun107.com/the-true-story-of-three-deaths-caused-by-a-voodoo-curse-in-westport/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_dolls
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopi_Kachina_figure

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Krampus and Other Terrifying Christmas Legends

12/5/2019

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     Everyone loves the holidays because they’re filled with family traditions; and those traditions fill us with good feelings, which is why we keep them year after year, right? Not exactly. According to psychologists, we are far more likely to keep a tradition going if it comes with the possibility of a threat of punishment. For example, consider the tradition of Santa at Christmas. Sure, the thought of receiving gifts makes us feel good, but there’s always that possibility that he could put coal in your stocking if you’re naughty, or that you might not get the gifts you want. Or, God forbid, there’s the possibility that Santa might overlook you altogether. So, we don’t follow traditions just because we enjoy them--subconsciously, we may be following them because we’re afraid.
The Christmas season is upon us, and with it comes lots of traditions including the December 25th visit by none other than the big guy himself--Santa Claus. Now, there’s probably no need for me to tell you who Santa is, but it’s important to know a little bit about the ‘jolly old elf’ before we move onto other more unsavory Christmas legends.

St. Nicholas vs Santa Claus
Santa Claus evolved from St. Nicholas who was an actual person; a 4th-Century Greek Christian bishop from Lycia on the southern coast of Turkey. It’s said that Nicholas gave away all of his inherited wealth and traveled the countryside helping the poor.
The name Santa Claus comes from St. Nicholas’ Dutch nickname, Sinterklaas. Like the game of telephone, pass a name on long enough and it will end up sounding like something else. In this case, over time, Sinterklaas became known as Santa Claus.
During the middle ages, a tradition sprang up whereby children were bestowed with gifts from St. Nicholas, not on Christmas but on the evening before the date of St. Nicholas’ death, December 6. The practice of giving children gifts at Christmas was started by Martin Luther (1483-1546), the monk who was a seminal figure in the Protestant reformation. By the sixteenth-century, the custom of giving gifts to children on the feast of St. Nicholas was very popular, but Luther was interested in placing the focus on Christ instead of the veneration of saints, so the date was moved to December 25 to coincide with Christmas.
Now, a brief word on why Christmas is celebrated on December 25. During the first three centuries of Christianity, Christ’s birth wasn’t celebrated at all. The first official mention of Christmas as a holiday celebrating Jesus’ birth appears in a Roman calendar from 336 AD. The church chose the date for Christmas to coincide with existing pagan festivals honoring the Roman god of agriculture and the Persian god of light. Declaring December 25 as a Christian holiday was a way to force Rome’s pagan subjects to accept Christianity as the empire’s official religion.
The familiar image of Santa filling childrens’ stockings with toys originated from a series of woodcuts distributed by a member of the New York Historical Society in 1810. But of course, the image of the portly ‘jolly old elf’ in the red suit became fixed in our minds from the 1822 poem, “A Visit From St. Nicholas” also known as “Twas the Night Before Christmas”.

Krampus
Long before the modern, jolly old man we know today as Santa, there was the German Christmas Devil known as Krampus. The tradition of Krampus dates back to the 12th century. In the days leading up to the Feast of St. Nicholas, children would begin to hear rumors and whispers of the coming of an evil, black-fur covered creature. He had a mangled, maniacal face with bloodshot eyes and a long, red, snake-like tongue dangling from his open mouth. Giant horns curled up from his head, and his body was a mixture of man, goat, and demon. His job was to weed out the good children from the bad. As you can imagine, young children would have been absolutely terrified as Krampusnacht--Krampus Night--quickly approached.
     While Santa is known for leaving a lump of coal in the Christmas stockings of naughty children, the Krampus used much more sinister means to keep children in line. He carried a bundle of sticks which he would brutally swat naughty children with. But the punishment didn’t end there. The legend goes that Krampus would enter the town swinging long chains around to capture the bad children. Once caught, a child would be put in a large basket or sack that Krampus carried on his back, and he would bring all of the bad children either to the woods, or down to his home in the underworld.
     Traditionally, young men would dress up as the Krampus during the first week of December, particularly on the evening of December 5, and roam the village frightening children with rusty chains and bells. Sometimes accompanying St. Nicholas and sometimes on his own (1), Krampus would visit homes and businesses throughout the town. Whereas the person playing the part of St. Nicholas would give out candy and toys to the children, the young man playing the part of Krampus would attempt to whip and capture children. Although it was probably understood to be all in good fun, the not-so-subtle warning to behave was surely ingrained in young childrens’ minds all year long.
The Krampus seems to have originated from the pagan ‘Horned God’ worshiped by witches and other pagan religions, and the lashing of bad children with birch switches may be tied to the initiation rites performed by some witches covens.
      Today, Krampus has his own celebration on the day before the Feast of St. Nicholas. In Germany’s Alpine region, every evening on December 5 elegantly dressed St. Nicks pair up with monstrously outfitted Krampuses and make the rounds of homes and businesses, offering gifts and playful threats. (3) As the Krampus walks along, the rattling of his chains and the jangling of cowbells warn of his coming. He dashes through the streets chasing children and adults alike, poking them with sticks as if to say, ‘You’ve been naughty this year.’

Belsnickel
     Although the Krampus is the most famous Christmas demon, in southwestern Germany, children know of a Christmas character called Belsnickel--a cantankerous, fur-clad bringer of gifts. Unlike the purely evil Krampus, Belsnickel’s character is a combination of sinister and generous.
Like most malevolent Yuletide characters, Belsnickel has his own particular style of dress and recognizable features. He is usually portrayed as a ragged, disheveled man dress in furs, and is sometimes seen wearing a mask with a long tongue. In other areas of Germany he can be found wearing a long, black or brown coat or robe held together at the waist with a rope. On his head is either a fur cap or bear skin hat decorated with bells. He carries a switch in his hand that he uses to beat naughty children; but his pockets are filled with cakes, candies, and nuts for good children.
     As people migrated from Germany to the US, In the early 1800’s Belsnickel’s fame spread to the Pennsylvania Dutch. There he was known as a character who visited homes a few weeks before Christmas to check up on the behavior of the children. His coming was usually frightening for children because he always seemed to know exactly which of them misbehaved. “He would rap on the door or window with his stick and the children would have to answer a question for him, or sing some type of song. In exchange he would toss candies onto the floor. If the children jumped too quick for the treats, they may end up getting struck with Belsnickel's switch.” (4)
     Belsnickling is the traditional running of groups of young men dressed in masks and fantastic costumes on the eve of the Feast of St. Nicholas. It’s a good-natured, boisterousness event where the young men, dressed in skins and furs, run through the village streets rattling chains and bells.

Le Père Fouettard
Another evil Christmas character, Le Père Fouettard, hails from France; and of all the holiday boogiemen, his backstory is perhaps the most gruesome.
     The most popular story of Le Pere Fouettard--more ‘affectionately’ known as Father Whipper--was first told in 1150. In it, three boys on their way to enroll in a religious boarding school are kidnapped by Le Pere Fouettard who is a butcher. He and his wife drug the boys and slit their throats, then cut them into pieces and stew them in a barrel. In a Sweeney-Todd-like twist, St. Nicholas happens to stop by and is offered the best cuts of meat--the boys. He discovers the crime and resurrects the children and sends them back to their parents. Seeing an opportunity for the butcher to repent his sins, the butcher either willingly or by force became St. Nicholas’ servant. As the two walk about the town in the days leading up to the Feast of St. Nicholas, St. Nick rewards the good children with candy and toys, while Father Whipper punishes the bad ones with his whip.

Knecht Ruprecht
     Another one of St. Nick’s ‘bad cop’ helpers is Knecht Ruprecht, the name Ruprecht being a common name for the devil in Germany. He is first mentioned in written sources in the 17th century. His appearance is similar to that of Father Whipper in that he is depicted as a man with a long beard dressed in furs with little bells on his clothes. He sometimes carries a long staff, and a bag of ashes. Ruprecht sometimes walks with a limp, and his black clothes and dirty face are attributed to the soot he collects as he goes down chimneys.
     Ironically, even though his name is associated with the devil, his job seems to be to find out if children know their prayers. If they do, they receive gifts from St. Nicholas. If they don’t, Ruprecht beats the children with his bag of ashes. This is an interesting contrast to the Catholic tradition of receiving ashes on Ash Wednesday. To wear ashes on one’s head during Ash Wednesday signifies purification and sorrow for sins. But if you are seen covered with ashes from Knecht Ruprect, it is a sign that you are in need of further religious study.
     Although he seems tame enough, there is a darker side to some of the Ruprecht traditions. Sometimes children would be summoned by Ruprecht to dance or singing a song. The good performers were rewarded by St. Nicholas; the bad performers would be severely beaten by Ruprecht. However, those who performed REALLY badly were put into Ruprecht's sack and taken away to his home in the Black Forest to be eaten, or to be tossed into a river. Think of it sort of like a diabolical, 17th century version of American Idol.

Frau Perchta
     The only female on our list of Christmas horrors is Frau Perchta--also known as The Belly Slitter. She is best known as a figure from Germanic and Austrian folklore, but versions of her gruesome holiday antics can be found all over Europe. Frau Perchta is generally depicted as a crone dressed in rags with a long, beaked, iron nose. Sometimes she carries a cane, but almost always she carries a long, sharp knife that she keeps hidden beneath her skirts. (4a) Her character most likely evolved from Berchta, the Germanic goddess of abundance who was demonized by the Catholic church and referred to as a witch.
Frau Perchta is said to fly through the night sky accompanied by demonic Krampus-looking creatures, elves, and unbaptized babies. If you hear the sound of thunder and the roaring of wind on the last three Thursdays before Christmas, it just might be Frau Perchta flying through the night with her creepy entourage.
This ugly, witch-like hag is known to reward the good and generous, and to punish the greedy and dishonest. The majority of her victims are those who work on feast days, particularly Epiphany Sunday which is celebrated by the church on the first Sunday after January 1. For some reason, she takes a special interest in spinners--those who make thread or yarn by spinning. Those who don’t rest during holy days, and especially those who spin when they shouldn’t, are punished by having their bellies slit open with a knife, their intestines pulled out, and the empty cavity filled with rocks or straw.
     Ironically, Frau Perchta also punishes the lazy. So, you shouldn’t work on feast days, but God forbid you slack off any other time of the year. And Frau Perchta reserves special punishment for dishonest children--she scrapes their tongues with broken glass. But have no fear! If you are a good, hard-working soul she might reward you with a silver coin. So, just to clarify, if you failed to meet your spinning quota for the year or you worked on her feast day, you got disemboweled and stuffed full of rocks. If you worked hard and did what you were supposed to do you got … like a dime.(5) Sounds fair to me!

Hans Trapp
This last Christmas evil-doer is based on an actual person named Hans Van Tratha, a 15th century French knight. He was said to stand about six-and-a-half feet tall, and he lived in a lavish castle called ‘Berwartstein’ which was given to him by the Elector (ruler) of an area bordering Germany and France.
Hans’ bad reputation grew from a feud he had with his neighbor Henry, the Abbot of Benedictine Monks at Weissenburg Abbey. Hans said that as owner of the castle the Abbey, which was on his property, belong to him, and he demanded that it and all its belonging be turned over to him.
The feud became so bad that Henry turned to the Pope for help. The Pope summoned Hans to Rome to be questioned about his loyalty to the church, but he refused and was subsequently excommunicated from the church. After this, the king and the emperor pronounced an imperial ban on Van Trotha. But in spite of this banishment, he went on to become a respected knight in France, and he died of natural causes at castle Berwartstein. Two years after his death, for some reason the Emperor and the Pope had a change of heart and all of the sanctions were lifted.
     Of course, Hans Van Tratha’s bad-boy reputation lead to many legends which somehow morphed into the Christmas character Hans Trapp. Although he is known to children as the “Black Knight”, Hans Trapp is often depicted simply as a man with a white beard who wears a pointed hat. Of course, like many of our ne’er-do-well Christmas characters, he carries a rod with him to hit children with if they don’t sing and pray.
     But Hans Trapp wouldn’t be on this list if he was just another child punisher. Indeed, the legends that grew up around him and his evil doings at Christmas time are truly gruesome. The most popular legend is that he became very wealthy through acts of magic and through making a pact with demons, and that he worshiped Satan. When the Vatican heard of his cruelty and his involvement with the occult, he was arrested and brought before the Pope. He was excommunicated for Satanism and upon returning to his home in France discovered that everything he owned had been taken from him. Now totally destitute, the villagers of his hometown shunned and banished him to the woods in neighboring Germany.
     Totally enraged at those who took everything away from him, he devoted his life to practicing sorcery and other dark arts. After years of living alone in the forest, he went insane and began to crave the taste of human flesh, so he came up with a plan. He would disguise himself as a scarecrow by stuffing his clothes with straw and sticks and wait in the fields for his unsuspecting prey to come by. Day after day he waited in the fields for the perfect victim. Then one day, a young boy on his way home took a short-cut through the fields and was violently attacked by Hans Trapp. He stabbed the boy with a sharpened stick and dragged his body back to his shack in the woods. There he cut the child’s body into pieces and roasted them over his fire. But just as he was about to take his first bite of the child’s flesh, God struck him down with lightning and he died.
     To this day, parents of the North-Eastern region of France warn their children that every Christmas Hans Trapp’s spirit would come back dressed as a hooded scarecrow to enact his revenge by abducting naughty children into the forest where they would never be seen again. (6)

     I hope you’ve enjoyed these harrowing Christmas legends. If tradition goes hand-in-hand with the threat of punishment, then it’s no wonder these creepy holiday traditions have lived on for centuries. So watch out. Santa is right around the corner, which means that Krampus, Belsnickel, Le Père Fouettard, Knecht Ruprecht, Frau Perchta, and Hans Trapp aren’t far behind. And if you haven’t been good this year, each one is just waiting to dole out their own special brand of punishment.

Resources
https://www.bustle.com/articles/131377-why-we-love-traditions-according-to-science
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus
https://www.6sqft.com/how-santa-claus-was-born-in-new-york-city-in-the-1800s/
http://www.unmuseum.org/santa.htm
https://www.historyanswers.co.uk/people-politics/le-pere-fouettard-the-french-christmas-cannibal-who-serves-santa-claus/
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/krampus-krampusnacht_n_5a278422e4b02d3bfc367bf4
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Krampus
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Pan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belsnickel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knecht_Ruprecht
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%A8re_Fouettard
https://historycollection.co/ten-terrifying-christmas-customs-legends-around-world-will-give-chills/7/
https://www.npr.org/2011/12/10/143485735/naughty-or-nice-krampus-horror-for-the-holidays
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/krampus-could-come-you-holiday-season-180957438/
http://germaniasociety.com/christkindlmarkt/st-nick-krampus
https://boroughsofthedead.com/frau-perchta/
https://thestoriedimaginarium.com/2018/12/24/the-myth-of-frau-perchta/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_von_Trotha
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/matauryn/2018/12/11/hans-trapp/

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Stories Shared by Audience Members at my 2019 Library Lecture Series

10/22/2019

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Kent Library -- Carmel, New York
My sister Carol has a house in Burrillville, Rhode Island right over the border from Putnam Connecticut. It had been her boyfriend Tim's house where he grew up with his family. A few years ago she was staying over in the house and she brought a nightgown upstairs to the bedroom. She lay it on the bed and went downstairs for a minute, and when she came back the nightgown was gone. It just disappeared. She looked all over for the nightgown, but she couldn't find it, so she wound up wearing one of her boyfriends' shirts to bed that night. It didn't seem like much, but a couple weeks later she found the nightgown in an old chest that was in the room.
What was interesting about the story is that when my sister first met her boyfriend, he took her up to Burrillville to meet his mother, and the mother never liked her. They weren't married, they were good Catholics, they were living in sin and so-on and so-forth. After fourteen years they're still not married! The mother just didn't like her. Shortly after that the mother died. She fell down the stairs in the house.
This story about the nightgown happened about three years ago. As I said, they live in the house where Carol's boyfriend's mother died, and they do stay in the mother's room. When the nightgown disappeared no one was in the house but Carol and Tim. She did find it several weeks later hidden in this trunk; but Carol is convinced that the mother is still there and that she took the nightgown off the bed and put it in the trunk so they wouldn't sleep together. Different things have happened, being walking into a room and suddenly feeling freezing cold is one of them. Hearing footsteps is another, but the most significant thing was the missing nightgown, and she thinks that her boyfriend's mother still doesn't like her.
_____
This happened about three years ago. A little history on it, I've spoken to people who believe in spirits and stuff like that, like my crazy sister-in-law. They say they know the colors they like, and they know their names and all of this stuff. But I'm the kind of person that needs proof. I gotta know for sure. I need some kind of proof.
So, one night I go to bed and the bedroom is small. It's about 8x10 and the bed is in the corner, so nothing gets to me unless I can see it. So I go to bed one night. I'm laying on my right side. The wall is behind me and the headboard is against the wall. I'm laying there and I'm going to ask if there's anything in the room, if there's such things as spirits, I gotta know. I said, "I gotta know right now. I don't want to know a week or a month down the road or whatever. It's gotta be right now, I've gotta know yes or no. And if they're not, well, I'm not going to ask again. This is it." I said, "Just one thing. Don't scare the ____ out of me. I don't want you dropping in through the ceiling, appearing in this room or anything like that."
Now, my dog is listening to this. The dog is three feet away, she's giving me the side-eye like, 'Who's he talking to?'. But I'm watching the dog because the dog is going to know anything that happens. So I'm laying there, when all of a sudden I feel two big steps in the bed behind me. BOOM! BOOM! Not light, but the way that I would have stepped on the mattress. I bounced up and down and I put my arm behind me--and thank God, I don't feel a leg back there. And I say, 'Thank you. That's enough!' Because if something would have touched me, I would have had a heart attack. So it kind of knew. I'll do this and this guy won't panic and jump out the window. So it was interesting.
I have friends who tell me, 'Do that again. you have to prove that that was real.' No I don't! You don't want to be calling stuff. You don't know who's there. Once is enough.
_____

Danbury Library -- Danbury, Connecticut
About 30 years ago my wife and I and my son and his wife went camping up to New Hampshire on the Saco Rover. We decided to go canoeing the next day down the river. So we get everything all together, got in the canoe and started going down. It got pretty swift. We were coming to a corner and here's a tree laying half on the ground and half in the water. So my son's wife, Kathy, was with me and my wife was in another canoe with our son. Now, if you damaged the canoe you had to pay for it when you got back. So we're going along at a pretty fast clip and here's this tree. So I said, "Kathy, put your foot out and try to push the boat away because we're going to hit that tree." Sure enough we hit it, and the boat turns over and fills up with water. She's caught underneath the boat between the boat and tree, and I'm not strong enough to push the canoe back so she could get up. She was under water. So my son jumps out of his canoe and tries to come over to try and help. In the meantime here's this 60's thin guy, white hair sitting on a sandy part of the shore. Nothing else around because we're going through the woods. I'm pushing for all I'm worth. Jeffrey is calling to Kathy. All of a sudden I look and I see this hand on the top corner point of the canoe. He says to me, "Relax". That's all he said. Then with one hand, he pulled that canoe up and Kathy came up out of the water. I turned around to thank him, and this guy is gone. So from that day on I believe in angels.
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We were having a family reunion in New Jersey. We have a rather large family, and everybody was together. One of the things we did is that everybody who passed away was given a balloon and you write the person who passed away's name on the balloon. So we all went out in the yard, and I had put my mother's name on a balloon. Everybody let the balloons go on the count of three. Every single balloon went up except my mother's. It stayed at an average height, about 5 feet off the ground. It floated the whole afternoon. It floated around the yard, in the house, all over. So we all said, 'Mom never wanted to leave the party!'
_____
I don't share this story with anyone, but since I feel like I'm amongst friends. I'm 43 now, and this happened when I was 16 years old I grew up in a pretty haunted house. I want to say that my family was kind of religious, so we had a belief system to call for help if something were to happen; especially with a house being kind of busy (with ghosts). This is a scary story, but one night I was in bed. The lights were off and I was awakened, and it was a really thick, blacker-than-black mist that came into my room, and it smelled like sulfur. And it came and it started to choke me--three times it started to choke me. The first time I called out, and my believe system was to call out to God so I called out to Jesus and it froze and it disappeared. And then the second time it came back and it's choking me. I can't breathe, I'm choking and there's pressure on my neck. There's the disgusting smell of sulphur, and there was just fear and death. I called out Jesus and it stopped. The last time it came back it's choking me and I'm like, 'God, I'm going to die'. And then I see out of the corner, it was like a movie. A light comes out of the corner, a bright light and it stops. The hands are still around my neck. And I hear a voice say, "What are you doing here. Don't you know she's mine? You have no right to be here." Then the voice said, "You are to leave and you're never to come back, and I'm placing angels in the corners of her room." I don't know if it's coincidence, but I ended up getting cancer years later in my throat.
_____
I was on 'death watch' for a friend's dad who had pancreatic cancer. It was in the middle of the night and he was sent home from hospice. I was sitting in the chair and I'm kind of getting tired, and I see a shadow in the doorway. A black shadow. I remember shaking my head like 'I'm seeing this, but I can't be seeing this'. I wouldn't have thought anything about it had he not started to freak out in his bed. He had already been given medication to pass, to help him to relax and to go into his state, but he started freaking out in his bed when the shadow came into the room. I was struck with fear, and I just shut my eyes and then it was gone. I had to go home, and when I came back I heard that he had passed away. And the only thing that I can remember is, do you know the mummy they discovered where he looks shocked and scared? That was the state of this man. His face. Once he passed away, he just was struck with fear at whatever was coming in the doorway for him, even when he passed away. I got to see him. He was gone, his mouth was open, his eyes were wide open. He was horrified. Horrified.
_____
I'm 30 now, but this happened when I was a teenager. I grew up in a very old building in Yonkers. I always knew that there was something that was not right with this building. My family all lived in the same building, so all the neighborhood kids would hang out in our house since we lived on the first floor.
One day we invited one of our friends to come over. She was always into witchcraft and all these different things from a young age. So one day she came with a book bag and she pulls out this Ouija board. I didn't know what it was, and she was like, "I hear that you guys can talk to spirits with this." She was telling us about it and I was like, "Cool! Let's play it!" So, somehow everyone ends up coming into our apartment and there's maybe like thirteen of us in one little living room, and we're all like, 'Can this thing really work.'
So, four or five of us gathered around and we started asking it questions. Four of us had our fingers on the planchette and it starts to move. I'm like, 'Come on guys. Stop messing around.' And they're like, 'I'm not moving it!' So we all start freaking out and we ask for a name. And it goes to J-A-V and none of us knew what it meant. My first name starts with a J and my last name starts with a V but I didn't put anything together. And so maybe about five minutes after, something in my brain just clicked. My parents lost a son at a very young age, and his initials are JAV, and I immediately became flooded with emotions and was just bawling. I asked if this was my brother and the planchette went to YES. When that happened I just walked away and I could not control my emotions. I had to stop.
After that happened I came back. We used to have a reclinable chair and my dog was sitting at the top, she was laying at the top of the chair. It was one of those big old fashioned ind of chairs. Somebody asked, 'Was this real? If that was real can you please make a sign?' We lived on the first floor, but there was about 10 feet between the base of the building to our window. And it just sounded like a rock hit the window. My dog freaked out and started barking at the window. We were like, we're done!
About a week later I was feeling really uneasy the remainder of the week and I ended up falling asleep in the same livingroom where we had played with the Ouija board. I was watching TV, I fell asleep and I wake up in the middle of the night. This was an old building, and there was an indented part where our sofa was, and there was a stained glass chandelier. I look up and this chandelier was spinning in circles. I just freaked out. I couldn't move, I couldn't scream, I couldn't get up. And then I just remember closing my eyes really tight and holding onto the pillows around me and I'm like, 'God if you're here please help me leave this room' and I just bolted out and ran to my room.
I didn't tell anybody until about seven years later. My mom was really pissed at me, even seven years later! That was the one experience I have that have manifested and I physically experienced something moving around me.
_____
I live in a house from 1775 with my parents, so it's really old. We hear creaky stuff, and doors, and my dad's a huge skeptic so he just writes it off. Nothing major has ever happened, but recently I was taking a nap in my parents' bed one day and I woke up to someone clapping right next to my face. Like LOUD. It jolted me awake. And I could feel the presence, almost the breeze from the clapping being right next to my ear. I was terrified. And I immediately called and told my parents, and my mom actually confessed a week later that she had the exact same thing happen to her with the clapping, and that she just wrote it off and never told anybody.  Nothing has happened since, but I saged the shit out of my house after that so that could be why! I did a lot of investigation into it because I was terrified. That was several months ago and nothing has happened since. That was the one thing that I ever personally experience that made me think, maybe this is really. So, I'm not so skeptical after that.

Oxford Library -- Oxford, Connecticut
I have a Ouija board story. The one and only time that I ever would participate in it. I went to Salve Regina College in Newport. This was back in the winter of 1986/87 when the college had just recently turned co-ed, so all the boys were in one dormitory—Carey Mansion where they filmed Dark Shadows. The mansion was about 150 years old at the time, and Salve Regina had a lease on it. They no longer do, and it’s no longer a dormitory. But at the time it was the boys dorm, and it was very creepy. Picture gargoyles and things like that. I always hated going there. I always had just a really creepy feeling when I went there, and everybody would say to me, ‘Oh, it’s just because it’s creepy looking. There’s really nothing going on there.’

So one night a group of girls decided to do the Ouija board at Carey Mansion, and they shamed me into coming with them. You know, like ’Come on, don’t be chicken’, So, I went. When we got there we found out that all the boys were out somewhere, but we decided to stay anyway and we went into what they called the study room. This was a big room that had three ten foot tall iron grate windows; you know, those real thick glass windows—and they never opened. They were always shut because it was impossible to open them.
So, we went to the study room and there were ten girls; eight of us around the table, and two girls who sat on the table criss-cross with the Ouija board on their lap. Contrary to what you were saying before about how the Ouija board planchette in your story was going fast, these girls were going really slow with the Ouija board. So they started asking questions. They took forever. Literally like an hour to answer these questions: Is there a spirit here? — Yes. Are you a good spirit or a bad spirit? — Bad. What is your name? — And it spelled out ‘Sebastian’.
So now we’re all starting to get a little antsy and tired and a little creeped out, so they were like “Sebastian, if you’re here show us a sign.” And nothing happens. They ask a second time, nothing happens. The third time they ask and I said, “Yeah, the window’s going to fly open next,” and as soon as the words left my mouth the window flew open and wind and little snowflakes came in, because it was flurrying outside. Well, it was pandemonium. I was at the edge of the table. I remember trying to get out the door, which was right there, and this girl who was about six feet tall and two hundred pounds landed on top of me and knocked the wind out of me.
Everybody ran out and I’m laying in the hallway and I’m stunned, and all of a sudden there’s a man looking over me and it’s the priest who lives upstairs. He was from Ireland, Father Meade. And Father Meade was looking at me like, ‘What the hell is this girl doing on the floor?’ And I just pointed into the room and he looked and he just went white. He said, “How did you open that window?” and I said, “It flew open.” “Don’t like to me,” he said. “We’re not lying, Father. The window flew open.” And then I started to cry because now I’m totally freaked out. And he sees the Ouija board and I said, “I know it’s a sin!” — because here I am this Catholic girl. “It’s only a sin if you believe,” he said. And I’m like “I’m crying because I believe because the window just flew open!”
Everybody left me there with Father Meade, and he just did not believe me. He had to call people to come and put the window back in place because it weighted so much. No one could ever open these windows, and he just could not believe that one just flew open by itself. I said to him, “Father, when we were doing the Ouija board I said it and the window flew open,” and he was looking at me like I lost my marbles.
I never stepped foot in there again, and I use that story to tell young people never to touch the Ouija board. I probably didn’t sleep for two weeks after that. I’ve heard stories that Kerry mansion is haunted, you know, Urban legends. But I really experienced this. It happened to me many, many years ago and I’ll never forget it.
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I’m a graphic designer and I was doing an ad for ‘Global Health’. I was looking at stock photography, and I was on the computer just looking at pictures of globes and stethoscopes—pages and pages trying to find the right image. There were 25 images I was looking at, and right in the center is a black image with white letters, and it said “Hi my love”. And I looked at it and I thought, ‘That’s so strange! Why would that be in here?’ So I just kept looking for pictures, then I did my ad and afterward I thought, “Whoa! That’s so weird” Because when I used to talk to my mom all the time, when we’d say goodbye she would say, “Goodbye my love”. My mom has been gone for about five years. So, I said, that was so strange so I searched it ‘Hi my love’ and I never found it again. So I think that definitely was a message from her, and I wasn’t even thinking of her at the time. But I guess she was thinking of me.
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I’m a nurse, and this happened when I was just a graduate nurse and it was right after I lost my very first patient. I was driving home and I was upset, I was shaken and crying a bit about it. And as I was driving home I felt a pressure on my right shoulder, and all of a sudden I just started feeling a calming sensation coming over me after that. And then I knew that she was OK. She was telling me, “I’m OK”.
_____
This happened in August of 2007 in Bristol, Connecticut. We live across the street from a funeral parlor. It has three stories, and they used to rent out the third floor, but the fire department stopped them from renting it out because it didn’t have the extra staircase, so nobody was living up there at the time.
It was a hot night, and I was sleeping on our sun porch which is in the front of the house. It was a humid night and there was heat lightning, and this happened about 2 AM. I looked up at the funeral parlor and coming out of the top left hand window was a solid black shadow. It oozed out of the corner of one of the windows and just zipped around the front of the house, then around the corner of the house real fast. It was human shaped, and elongated (see illustration drawn by the person who told the story) because it came out of the corner of the window. It started out as a small shape, then grew into a long, full shape that zipped right around the corner of the house.

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I’m in a dance group and we do a performance at a camp in Woodstock, Connecticut every fall. This year, when we were doing out performance our audio kept messing up. We were recording the whole thing and when the person who had the camera went to go back and check the recordings, half of it didn’t record. The camera was fine. It had batteries and everything, but half of it was gone.
That morning, most of the girls were in my cabin. I was the den mom of the cabin, and I woke them all up that morning and they were all saying, “I have bruises on my arms” and I was like, “Oh girls, don’t worry about it. You’re probably just bruised up from something you did yesterday.” The girls aged from 14 to 16 years old. The bruises were just on their arms. And then I got up, and there was a scratch on my arm. It looked like a cat scratch. I said to the girls, “That’s weird because I work for a cat shelter, and I KNOW when I get a cat scratch.” They were like, “How do you know?” I told them, “I feel it when it happens. It really stings and burns. So, it’s weird because my cat didn’t scratch me before. And besides, I hadn’t been at the cat shelter for three days.” Again, it was just on my arm, and all of the girls had bruises just on their arms.
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I have two stories to share. They’re actually not mine, they’re my dad’s, but I corroborated them with his brother who is also in the story. So, the first one happened when my father was four-years-old and his older brother was six. They had recently moved to Southbury, Connecticut. My dad’s brother was annoyed at my father, so he took him for a walk and he ended up throwing him in a pond. The pond was iced over, and my dad fell in and went under the ice. He couldn’t find his way out because it was icy, so he kept banging on the ice and banging on the ice until he heard a voice. He doesn’t know how he got out of the pond, and there was nobody around when he got out of the pond. His brother got scared and took off and came back with grandma, and no clue who that was who lead him out of the water. He didn’t remember what the voice said, but he got the idea it was like, ‘Follow me’. He just knew that he had to follow the voice. My grandmother corroborated the story too, that my uncle came and got her to come get my father. And she thought that he would have been dead by the time they got there because it was a good 10 or 15 minutes from where they were. And when they got there, he was out and on top of the bank somehow.
The second story took place when my dad was much older, when they were teenagers. My uncle was about sixteen-years-old, and my father was about thirteen or fourteen. They had a friend named Charlie, and they lived at the top of the hill where I grew up in Southbury in the Berkshire Estates area. There’s a community where they have a lot of summer homes that they then modified and turned into larger homes, but there were still a lot of one room summer shacks that were kind of abandoned in the back woods area. So, my dad and his friends used to play in them a lot. As teenagers, they’d go in there and roughhouse and put their comic books in there and that kind of stuff.
So, there was one of these one room shacks that they used to go to all the time. So one day, my father, his brother and their friend Charlie met at this house, and they were playing for a good hour and a half in this room talking, doing their same-old same-old. They finally went to leave. My uncle was in the front, my father was in the middle, and Charlie was in the back talking to my father. At one point as they were walking, my father goes to turn around to answer Charlie and Charlie’s not behind him. Then seconds later, up ahead at the top of the hill is Charlie coming down the hill. So who had my father and my uncle been talking to for the past hour and a half? He wasn’t even there. After they saw him, they made him go to his house where his parents were. His parents had just let him go from whatever chores he was doing that morning. That’s when he became a believer in demons and things like that. Because he was like, “What was my brother and I talking to for an hour and a half?”

Mark Twain Library -- Redding, Connecticut
My in-laws bought a place down in Toccoa, Georgia. They had told us that there was something in the house that always turned off the refrigerator, the lights would go on and off, the microwave would go on by itself. One time the Jacuzzi went on by itself and wouldn't turn off again. So, my mother-in-law would talk to me about it, and I said, 'You know, if you ask them to stop -- see what happens". So one night she said, "OK, it's nine o'clock at night. Stop it with the lights, I want to go to sleep." Sure enough, he turned off the lights, and they didn't come on again until the next day.
My in-laws later learned that one of the contractors' employee's fell while they were building the porch off of the master bedroom. He fell right outside of our bedroom window. They didn't know this when they bought the house. The neighbors told them after, so it was something they learned later. They also discovered that some of the neighbors had paranormal experiences in there homes too.
This past April we were there, and we were packing to come home the next morning and my little one was in the shower. When he got out he looked in the bathroom mirror and said, "Mommy, who is this man who's in the window?" What happened was, he got out of the shower, and he looked in the mirror and saw this guy. He said it was a younger guy. He didn't seem bothered by it, but I was very upset.
I just knew that it was the guy who had died while building this house. So, I got very upset. I was like, 'How dare you! It's one thing to do things to adults, but not to a little boy.' So I did a clearing and said to this spirt, "You've got to go. You're not alive any more. You've passed." My intention was for him to find peace, that's all I wanted him to do.
After that, we went downstair to our bedroom and there was a really strong feeling of a presence in the room. It was a really heavy feeling. I could tell that he was there and that he just didn't want to leave. So I finally said, "You've got to go. But if you're not going to go, and you're not going to go to the light, that's up to you, but you can NOT be in this house. There's the light, just go. Go find happiness, go find your peace." And just like that, he left. The minute he left, everything just calmed. You could totally feel it. Since then they haven't had anything happening in the house. So I'm sure he's gone!
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I moved into a new house, and before I took the place I asked the landlord, "Has anyone died here?" and he said, "Well, yeah. We were going to tell you that. He died of natural causes, and he was a musician." So, a perfect fit. Musician. All the right things, and the family believes that he lead me to this house.
So I move in, and I set up my stereo. I have these heavy, heavy little speakers and I put them on either side of the mantle piece. Everything's set up. Ten days later, a friend of mine came to visit. It's Memorial Day weekend, I've been there about ten days and all of a sudden there's a crash downstairs. I look around and think, what was that? The cat is on the bed. This is weird. The next morning I go to my friend, "Hey, did you hear that crash last night?" and he said, "Yeah, I heard that. That was weird." It turns out the speaker got knocked off of the mantle piece and crashed. It still works, but it's dented up. It somehow got pushed off of the mantle. Now, a cat this big couldn't push something that heavy off even if he was up there. The speaker was right up against the wall. A cat could not have swiped it away from the wall and knocked it to the ground. These are heavy, heavy speakers. They could prop one of those metal doors open they're so heavy.
A few weeks ago, I feel a cat on my bed, but it wasn't my cat. He was downstairs. This past Sunday, I'm in the bathroom and I see the back end of a cat go from the bedroom to the guest room. And I'm thinking, 'That's weird. How did Nigel get up here and me not see him?' So I go into the guest room and look around, but there's nobody in there. I go downstairs, and Nigel is exactly where I left him. Ghost cat! Probably my late 'Finnie' found me.
But there's been some really interesting stuff happening. And the cool thing is that people walk into this house and they go, 'Wow! There's a lot of great, beautiful energy here.' So, whomever is lingering. Maybe he didn't like the speaker choices. I don't know. He was a musician. Maybe he's saying, "These aren't good enough! Get off! I didn't have this crap here when I lived here!" But like I said, everybody who comes in says there's great energy, and I'm very happy there. I think that whomever is hanging around is good and friendly.
My family has a lot of good stories about their time doing seances. One time in this old, old building that still exists in New York city where my parents lived, they were all doing a seance one night in the 60's. There were all these struggling actors in the room. Everybody was trying to make it in New York, and they all did a seance. And the table lifted up and went all the way up to the ceiling. And then they were like, 'OK, we're done!".

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How to Make a Ghost: The Philip Experiment

9/23/2019

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     Several years ago I attended a real, old fashioned seance. Before it got underway, I spent some time talking to the six other people who were in attendance and it was clear that all were either excited or nervous about what they might experience. Each was hoping to connect with one or more loved ones on the other side. Some brought pictures or momentos associated with the person, others just brought cherished memories. By the time the seance started, the room was alive with a palpable atmosphere of mystery and anticipation.
     The seven of us settled down in comfortable chairs around a wooden table and placed our hands lightly on its surface with our fingertips touching one another. We were told that this unbroken circle would generate a circle of energy that the spirits would use to help communicate with us. The room became quiet and the medium who lead the seance went into a light trance-state, then called out to our departed loved ones.
     I sat in rapt anticipation, looking furtively through half-closed eyes around the room for some sign that a spirit was present. I noticed that most people’s eyes were closed. I was certain that they were in deep thought about their loved ones. There was not a sound in the room except the soft ticking of a clock that hung on the wall which only heightened the sense of waiting and anticipation.
     Suddenly, the table began to vibrate almost imperceptibly under our fingertips, then light tapping sounds were heard from various parts of the room. These sounds started in one corner of the room, then quickly moved to the opposite corner. Soon, the tapping was all around us, even on the ceiling. There were more than a few surprised exclamations when the tapping started, and the sense of anticipation and excitement in the room increased considerably. The medium directed the spirits to answer her questions by tapping once for Yes, twice for No. As she asked her questions, the answering taps could be felt directly on the table. Sometimes there were more than two taps which confused us, but the medium assured us that this was simply an indication that the spirit either didn’t have an answer for us, or that a yes or no answer wasn’t appropriate. Of course, I kept half-an-eye open to make sure the medium wasn’t somehow generating these sounds herself, but I could see no indication that trickery was involved.
     After a while, the vibrations under our fingertips faded away to nothing, and the tapping suddenly stopped. We removed our hands from the table, and everyone exhaled audibly. There were a lot of smiles all around, and many said that as the seance was going on they could actually feel the presence of their loved ones in the room. One woman said that she even caught a whiff of her mother’s favorite perfume.
     Even though I was a seasoned ‘ghost hunter’, it was an exciting experience for me. And why wouldn’t it be? I had actually been in the presence of spirits, ghosts if you will. Or was I? Always the skeptic, I have to ask myself if something else could be responsible for the ghostly tapping and the sense of a spiritual presence? Is it possible that because all of us were so excited about the possibility of contacting a spirit, we actually made it happen? Did our heightened anticipation, hope, fear, excitement all contribute to the creation of the activity we witnessed? Did we collectively make a ghost?
     In September of 1972, a group of eight people from the Toronto Society for Psychical Research asked themselves the same question--Is it possible to make a ghost? Not to conjure up a spirit, but to actually create a ghost ‘from scratch’ so to speak. The experiment lasted over a year, and in the end it seems that they actually did it. They made a ghost.
     Before we get into the specifics of the experiment, we first need to understand the Tibetan Buddhist concept of tulpas. “A tulpa is an entity created in the mind, acting independently of, and parallel to your own consciousness. They are able to think, and have their own free will, emotions, and memories.” (1) The tulpa is essentially a thoughtform--a creation born from focused concentration, expectation, imagination and visualization.
     In the early 20th century, Belgian-French Buddhist Alexandra David-Neel claimed to have observed the practice of creating tulpas while spending time in Tibet. In her writings, she described tulpas as ‘magic formations generated by a powerful concentration of thought’. (2) She said that all humans have the power to create tulpas, and that ‘once the tulpa is endowed with enough vitality to be capable of playing the part of a real being, it tends to free itself from its maker’s control’. This freedom happens naturally just as a child is able to live apart from its mother after leaving the womb. David-Neel claimed to have created a tulpa in the image of a cheerful monk who developed a life of its own and accompanied her on her travels. Unfortunately, it became evil and David-Neel had to destroy it by means of six months of intense concentration.
     If you’ve ever read Mary Shelly’s book, Frankenstein, you’ll notice some eerie similarities between the characters in the book and David-Neel’s tulpa. Creation involves a far-reaching moral obligation. The creator is fully responsible for his creation, and it is his duty to care for it. But what do you do when your creation becomes evil? After all, the creator is also responsible for the actions of his creation and how they affect others. When looked at in this way, the creation of a tupa can’t be taken lightly.
     Jewish folklore speaks of the golem, an anthropomorphic being created from mud or clay. Although golem are said to be human-like, and they take on a life of their own after they are created, no golem is fully human. They lack the ability to speak, and because they are made from the earth, they can’t go among humans without being recognized for what they actually are--inhuman.
     It’s believed a golem could be created by total concentration induced by combining certain letters of the Hebrew alphabet during a special ritual. After writing the Hebrew word for ‘Truth’ down a piece of paper, it would be placed in the mud effigy’s mouth or forehead which would bring the golem to life. The golem could be destroyed by altering the word ‘Truth’ to read ‘Death’.
     In a book published in 1748, rabbi Jacob Emden wrote, "I'll mention here what I heard from my father's holy mouth regarding the golem created by one of his ancestors. When he saw that the golem was growing larger and larger, he feared that it would destroy the universe. He then removed the Holy Name that was embedded in his forehead, thus causing him to disintegrate and return to dust.(3)
     As we take a close look at the Philip experiment, we begin to see that it was actually an experiment in creating a tulpa.
     The Toronto Society for Psychical Research assembled a group of seven of its members to be part of the experiment. Although all were obviously interested in psychic research, none claimed to have any psychic gifts. The group, under the guidance of poltergeist expert Dr. A.R.G Owen, was made up of people from a variety of backgrounds: an industrial designer, the former chairperson of MENSA, an accountant, a housewife, a bookkeeper, a sociology student, and Dr. Owens’ wife. Psychologist Joel Whitten also attended some of the sessions, but he was not actually a member of the group.
     The group’s first task was to create a totally fictional character. Working together, they came up with a biography of someone they named Philip Aylesford, a thirty-year-old aristocratic Englishman living in the mid 1600s. He was married to a beautiful but uninterested wife, Dorothea. One day Philip was out riding on the boundaries of his estates when came across a gypsy encampment. There he saw a beautiful gypsy girl, Margo. He instantly fell in love with her and brought her back to his estate where he kept her as his mistress. She lived in the estate’s gatehouse, and the two carried on their passionate affair in secret. Eventually Dorothea became suspicious and discovered that her husband was having an affair with Margo. She accused the girl of witchcraft and of stealing her husband. At Margos trial, Philip remained silent because he was afraid that he would lose both his reputation and his possessions. Margo was found guilty of witchcraft and burned at the stake. Afterward, Philip was so stricken with remorse and guilt at not having defended Margo that he ended his own life by throwing himself off of the battlements of his castle.
    As you can see, the biography they concocted was filled with drama, and like all good ghost stories, ended in tragedy. To further solidify the group’s image of Philip’s, one of its more artistic members drew a picture of him. One member of the group even traveled to England to photograph the area where Philip ‘lived’.
     Once everything was in place, the group met weekly for over a year to talk about Philip as if he was a real person. They meditated on the details of his life and tried to visualize him as clearly as they could. Although the transcripts of those sessions are not readily available, I’m sure the group elaborated on the details of Philip’s life as they went along, giving it as much drama and emotion as possible. Just imagine Margo’s terror as she is roughly tied to the stake atop the huge mound of kindling and firewood. Picture the throngs of spectators in frenzied anticipation of her execution, and of Margo’s pleas for mercy as the flames grow closer and closer, until they finally lick the bottom edge of her skirt, igniting it and engulfing the terrified girl in flames. Imagine Philip’s nightly walks along the battlements of his castle, his head in his hands as he sobs uncontrollably at the thought of what he failed to do to save the life of the woman he loved. We can almost see Philip staring over the edge of those same battlements, bright stars overhead as he finally throws himself down upon the rocks below in total despair.
     After meeting for over a year, the group still hadn’t received a sign of Philip’s presence. Although some members felt as if he was in the room with them, they still hadn’t received any type of communication from him. So they decided to change direction by attempting to contact Philip by conducting a seance. They sat around a table surrounded by Philip’s portrait and photographs of the type of castle Philip would have lived in, as well as objects from the 1600s. They dimmed the lights and placed their fingers lightly on the table, much like people did in the Victorian era to contact spirits by ‘table-tipping’. Finally after a month of trying to make contact this way, a slight vibration was felt under the groups’ fingertips. In the weeks that followed, the table began to rock back and forth. Finally, a single knock was heard on the table.
     The group was eltated. They asked Philip to knock once for Yes, twice for No. Addressing the spirit only by the name Philip, they began to ask him questions. Through yes and no knocks, Philip answered questions that matched the group’s fabricated biography. He also added other details that were not part of the group’s original vision of Philip. Interestingly, some of these details were found to be lacking in historic accuracy.
     “Sometimes someone would forget that Philip could only answer yes or no, and a question would be asked that required a different type of answer. When this mistake was made, Philip would invariably produce scratching noises. One one occasion, during a good session, one of the group jokingly asked Philip to give a rap under each person’s hand at the table. Philip took the request literally, and each member felt a loud rap under his or her hand at the same moment in time.” (Ghost Stories of Ontario, John Robert Columbo, p123)
     Because the table was the only way that Philip communicated with the group, participants in the seances were frisked to make sure that they were not using artificial means to produce the knocking sounds or to make the table move. And move it did! It tipped, rocked back-and-forth, slid from side-to-side, and balanced on one leg. It even moved when no one was touching it. Once, it moved all the way across the room on its own and became stuck in the doorway as it attempted to exit the room.
     In addition to moving the table, Philip also made the room’s lights dim on demand. When asked to restore the lights to their original brightness, Philip obliged without hesitation. Cool breezes were also felt around the table. Like the dimmed lights, Philip could produce these whenever asked. Some claimed to have heard whispers in response to their questions, but these were never captured on audio.
     The group claimed that the table felt different when Philip was communicating with them, describing it as feeling ‘electric’ and ‘alive’. A few times, a fine mist was seen covering the center of the table. One of the most astonishing things that the group reported was the table becoming so animated during a session that it would literally rush over to meet latecomers to the sessions. Occasionally, it even moved across the floor and trapped members in the corner of the room, much to the surprise of those whose hands were on the table.
     The experimenters went to great lengths to show that none of them were responsible for the rapping sounds on the table. The volunteers knocks were even recorded and compared to Philips’ knocks. There were differences, the most notable being that the vibrations from Philip’s knocks died away more quickly than those of the volunteers.
     The grand finale of the experiment was a seance conducted before a live audience and filmed as part of a television documentary. That night, Philip performed beautifully. Besides the table tappings, lights blinked off and on, and sounds coming from various parts of the room, the table completely levitated a half-inch off of the ground.
     One of the original goals was to have the spirit of Philip actually materialize. Unfortunately, this never happened. But the amount of activity that the experiment yielded gave the group far more than they ever imagined was possible.
     There certainly was an amazing amount of activity, but did the experiment actually prove that the group created a ghost? Not really. The activity at the seances was so similar to poltergeist activity that many believers in the paranormal feel that another spirit probably ‘sat in’ on the sessions and simply played along with the scenario. Others believe that because Philip only had knowledge available to the group, all of the answers came from their subconscious. But that doesn’t account for the actual sounds of the knocks, or the moving table. Or does it? Is it possible that the human mind is so powerful that it can move objects and make sounds even when it is unaware that it is doing so?
     Recently, Dr. Robert G. Jahn, head of the laboratory of abnormal studies at Princeton University, proved that the human mind can affect material objects. After thousands of experiments involving hundreds of men and women of all ages and professions, many subjects were able to move a pendulum placed under a transparent plastic cap. Five were able to move the pendulum regardless of their distance from the object.
     In the end, it’s impossible to know for sure where the phenomenon witnessed during the Philip experiment emanated from. Follow-up experiments by other groups did not have as spectacular results as the original. Maybe it was the chemistry of the original group that created an atmosphere that encouraged a great amount of telekinetic activity. Or, perhaps the group actually DID create a ghost named Philip; a seventeenth-century nobleman doomed to roam the earth riddled with guilt at having done nothing to save the woman he loved from death’s fiery embrace.

Resources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_experiment
http://www.frontrowreviews.co.uk/news/the-story-behind-the-quiet-ones-the-real-life-philip-experiment/29720
https://livinglibraryblog.com/the-philip-experiment/
https://www.liveabout.com/how-to-create-a-ghost-2594058
https://www.time-loops.net/Experiment_Philip.htm
https://www.strangerdimensions.com/2012/03/20/the-philip-experiment/
https://wiki.tulpa.info/wiki/Tulpa
https://www.funeralwise.com/digital-dying/inspiring-life-alexandra-david-neel-enchanting-world-death-discovered-tibet/
https://www.learning-mind.com/telekinesis-exists-scientific-evidence/

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The Incident at Dyatlov Pass

8/30/2019

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Time has a way of deepening and complicating a mystery, and the more time we put between the mystery and ourselves the more we want to unravel it and solve it once and for all. The story you are about to hear happened sixty years ago on a remote mountain in Russia. So if you love a good mystery and think you’re up to the task of solving it, then pay close attention to the details of what is now known as the incident at Dyatlov Pass. But be warned, just when you think you’ve figured it out, some detail will jump out at you and dash your theory to pieces.
The snow was six feet deep, and the temperatures 22 degrees below zero when the nine young but highly experienced Russian hikers set up camp. They pitched a single tent on the north slope of Kholat Syakhl, a remote mountain pass in Russia. Although the name of this area simply means ‘lack of game’ to the indiginous Siberian hunters, on February 2, 1959 the name took on its more sinister translation -- Mountain of the Dead; because in the middle of the night, the group was confronted by something so sudden, so shocking, so life-threatening that they ripped their way out of their tent with a knife and fled into the night in sub zero temperatures. Most were wearing only what they had worn to bed. All but two were either barefoot or wearing just socks as they walked nearly a mile downhill in a snowstorm to a forest. None would live to tell what happened that night.
On the surface, the cause of death of all nine hikers seems fairly obvious. When they wandered off into the snow barely dressed in savagely cold temperatures, they surely died from exposure. But there’s far more to the mystery of what really happened that night. Because as you’ll see, tales of strange lights in the sky; the presence of high-level radioactivity; rumors of Russian weapons testing; and brutal, unexplainable injuries to the hikers’ bodies all add up to the Dyatlov Pass incident as being one of the most baffling unexplained mysteries of all time.
     The team was led by twenty-three year old Igor Dyatlov, an experienced, physically fit guide who was passionate about climbing expeditions. He was highly respected by the ski-hiking community, and at the time of his last journey he was at the peak of his physical and athletic ability. The other members of the team were:
Yuri Doroshenko (21 years old)
Lyudmila Dubinina(20 years old)
Aleksander Kolevatov (24 years old)
Zinaida Kolmogorova (22 years old)
Yuri Krivonischenko (23 years old)
Rustem Slobodin (23 years old)
Nikolay Thibeaux-Brignolle (23 years old)
Semyon Zolotaryov (38 years old)
     Another hiker, 22-year-old Yuri Yudi, was also on the expedition, but he left a day after the hike began due to illness.

The group was planning on exploring the slopes of Otorten mountain on the northern face of the Ural Mountain range. Among climbers the Urals are not considered particularly dangerous mountains, and they are not much of a challenge in terms of scale or altitude. But the hikers’ ultimate destination, Otorten peak, is said to be sacred to the local indigenous people. Legend has it that Otorten means “Don’t go there”.
The group made their way to their hiking destination, and on January 31 they attempted to ascend Ural mountain by the shortest route, but bad weather forced them to go back to their camp. The following day they got off to a late start ascending the mountain, and once again bad weather got in the way of their climb and they ended up about 550 yards off course. Because of the bad weather, the team was only able to cover about a mile, so they decided to pitched their tent and spend the night on the north-eastern ridge of Kholat Syakhl. They probably chose this spot because it offered them some protection from the wind.
Recovered photos and journal entries show that up to this point, everything about the trip was fine. But some catastrophic event occurred that night that caused the nine to abandon their tent and to flee the campsite barely dressed in total darkness. Exactly what happened that night has been hotly debated for the past sixty years.

The entire Dyatlov mystery begins with the manner in which the team exited from the tent. For reasons no one has ever been able to explain, the sides of the tent were cut from the inside and the hikers chose this strange exit for leaving the tent rather than by the tent’s entrance. The only conclusion that can be reached is that they perceived a life threatening situation in close proximity to the tent. In their minds, to stay would have meant certain death.
To get a better understanding of how odd it is that the group left the tent, it’s important to know what they left behind. When the search team found the tent there were 9 backpacks laying on the floor, 9 blankets, and 9 jackets. To the left of the entrance were piled 7 felt boots and 6 pairs of hiking boots plus 2 pairs of shoes. To the right of the entrance were 3 axes, and various cooking items. There was also a 6 pound piece of pork loin.
Investigators said that everything in the tent seemed orderly except for the pile of shoes at the entrance. They described the shoes as being ‘chaotic’. It’s possible that even though they were frantic to get out of the tent, they attempted to grab shoes before leaving. But either there was no time, or there was not enough light in the tent to see where they were. As a result, some of the team fled wearing just socks, others were barefoot.
There’s another point of interest about the tent. In addition to the large cut that the group used to exit the tent, there were two small horizontal slits cut from the inside. It seems that something caught the hikers’ attention in the middle of the night that they wanted to see without leaving the safety of the tent. But what was it? And what could they possibly see in total darkness during a snowstorm?
Strange lights were reported by other hikers in the area which lead some to believe that the hikers encountered a UFO. Reports of glowing spheres were also observed almost continuously in a nearby village from February to March 1959. Some of the witnesses to these mysterious lights came from the Soviet military and the Russian meteorology service.
If there were bright lights in the sky that night, one can imagine a scenario where the area around the tent lit up so brightly that the hikers wanted to see what it was, so they cut the holes in the tent to have a look. The hikers had at least three cameras with them at the time, and some of the photos that were later developed show strange lights. One photo in particular seems to show the tops of three of the hikers’ heads looking up at a very large, intensely bright object in the night sky. Later, an investigator would come come forward with information that had been purposely taken out of the Soviet report of the investigation. The tops of the trees around the area were found to be burned. In addition, as we will discuss later, radiation plays a big part of the mystery of what happened at Dyatlov Pass.
     Those who dismiss the UFO theories may want to consider the Soviet weapons testing theory. There are records of parachute mines being tested by the Russian military in the area around the time the hikers were there. This type of weapon falls slowly from the sky, then explodes just over the ground. If the group heard an explosion in the middle of the night, they may have mistook the sound for an avalanche. But apparently, there were no traces of an explosion or metallic debris anywhere near the campsite. Then again, the investigation was led by the Soviet military, so it’s possible that any such discovery would have been quickly covered up. But even if the group thought they were about to be covered by an avalanche, why would they cut their way out of the tent rather than leave through the entrance? And what was it they perceived as being so dangerous that they would walk nearly a mile in bare feet in the snow.
Some claim that a Russian Bigfoot attacked the tent forcing the group to flee. However, no such footprints were found around the tent. In fact, the only footprints around the tent were the hikers’, which also squelches the theory that the group might have been attacked by a bear or a person. Whatever it was that caused the group to flee the tent in a state of sheer panic remains a mystery to this day.
Everything that happens after the hikers left the tent, we can only speculate about based on the evidence discovered by the search party. Nine pairs of footprints led to a cedar tree nearly a mile away from the tent. Here, the group made a fire out of branches from the cedar they took shelter under.
If we imagine the nine hikers staying together that night rather than scattering as they fled the tent, and based on the way the bodies were ultimately discovered, the following scenario is plausible.
Seeing that the group was in dire straits, group leader Igor Dyatlov may have decided to head back to the tent with Slobodin and Kolmogorova. He probably intended to ski back to the group at the cedar with clothing and supplies from the tent. The three tried to follow their tracks in the snow back to the tent, but soon after they left they must have been nearly blinded by the storm. Having already walked in socks or bare feet nearly a mile through the snow to the cedar, by this time their feet would have been severely frostbitten and would have had no feeling at all. Although some made it closer to the tent than the others, all three died in the attempt.
Back at the cedar tree, the fire begins to burn out. One of the remaining hikers probably suggests that they seek shelter from the wind by making a den in the side of a ravine 50 meters (164 feet) away. Zolotaryov, Dubinina, and Thibeaux-Brignolle leave the cedar tree to make the den while Aleksander Kolevatov stays behind to watch over the fire with Yuri Doroshenko and Yuri Krivonischenko who are poorly dressed, slowly freezing to death, and no longer strong enough to travel. Kolevatov is also waiting for the team who went back to the tent to return with supplies.
     Knowing that falling asleep means certain death, Doroshenko and Krivonischenko desperately try to stay awake. One of the men actually bites off a piece of his knuckle in an attempt to remain conscious, but it's no use. The two begin drifting in and out of consciousness from hypothermia and soon after, they die. Kolevatov lies the two men side-by-side. He removes some of their clothing to help keep the remaining hikers warm. Seeing that no one has returned with supplies from the tent, Kolevatov leaves to join Zolotaryov, Dubinina, and Thibeaux-Brignolle who have successfully built a den eight feet under the snow.
But in spite of the warmth of the den, the four die from hypothermia after leaving it and sustaining unexplainable, deadly internal injuries outside. Their bodies were found just a few feet from the den’s entrance. Those who conducted the autopsies said that the injuries were similar to those that a person would sustain by being hit by a car at high speed, or by standing right next to an explosive device. Adding to the mystery is the fact that there were no external injuries corresponding to the fractures, broken bones, and internal bleeding.
As the last hiker takes his last breath and the storm rages on, the mountain becomes eerily quiet. The only sounds are the howling of the wind and the hiss of fast-falling snow. If this was a movie, we could imagine the camera panning away from the two dead men under the cedar tree and traveling several hundred feet up the mountain. There at various distances from the tent we would see the wind driven snow beginning to cover the bodies of the three who attempted to make it back. Panning slowly back down the mountain, our camera would now pick out the den built out of fir tree branches and hard-packed snow. Just a few feet outside of the entrance to the den we see the blowing, drifting snow slowly beginning to cover the four bodies lying there--just a few feet from the warmth and safety of the only place they could have survived.
Back at home, the hikers’ family members begin to worry. Although it is not uncommon for hiking expeditions to run over by several days, too much time had gone by without a word from the team. On February 21 several search parties were sent to the area. These included parties made up of the hikers’ friends. Planes searched the area from the air, and the following day more parties joined the search. Moscow also sent several specialists, and they ultimately ended up running the investigation.
There are many unanswered questions about the incident at Dyatlov Pass, but the most compelling comes from examining the condition of the hikers’ bodies and clothing. Injuries include blunt-force trauma, wounds that look as if some of the hikers were fighting off someone or something, and more than one hiker suffered a skull fracture. But most mysterious of all was the presence of radioactivity on some of the hikers’ clothing.
     On February 27, a search party discovered the abandoned tent on the slope of Kholat Syakhl in what is now known as the Dyatlov Pass. They followed the tracks from the tent 1500 yards (4921 feet/0.93 miles) down to the cedar tree and it was here that the search team made their first grisly discovery--the bodies of Yuri Doroshenko and Yuri Krivonischenko.
Doroshenko was found wearing a sleeveless cotton undershirt, a short sleeve shirt with all six buttons fastened, shorts and swimming trunks, and cotton underwear. He was wearing a different set of wool socks on both feet, and these were covered by a pair of lighter socks. He was shoeless. Krivonischenko was wearing an undershirt, a long sleeved shirt, swimming trunks, long underpants, and a torn sock on his left foot. His right foot was bare. The two men were wearing more than this when they first arrived at the cedar, but it was discovered that the other hikers took their clothing after they died in an attempt to stay alive.
     The next bodies that were found were those of the three hikers who attempted to go back to the tent--Yuri Dyatlov, Rustem Slobodin, and Zinaida Kolmogorova.
Three hundred meters (984 feet) from the cedar tree, Dyatlov’s body was found lying face up wearing a sleeveless undershirt, long sleeved cotton shirt, and an unbuttoned fur sleeveless vest. He was wearing ski pants over his pants. On his feet he had one cotton sock on one foot, and one woolen sock on the other, but he was shoeless. It was noted in the final report that it was highly unusual for someone who was freezing to death to leave a fur vest unbuttoned.
Rustem Slobodin’s body was found 480 meters (1574 feet) from the cedar tree. He was found face down with his head towards the tent. He was wearing two pairs of pants, four pairs of socks, and he had one felt boot on his right foot. He had on a long sleeved undershirt, a shirt and a sweater.
During the autopsy, something strange was discovered--Slobodin had a fractured skull and severe hemorrhages on both sides of his head. These injuries would not be consistent with Slobodin simply falling on the snow as he tried to make his way back to the tent. The doctor who conducted the autopsy suggested that the fracture could only have been the result of Slobodin being struck with a blunt object. The autopsy further concluded that he probably suffered loss of coordination due to the initial shock right after the blow. This would have surely sped up his death from hypothermia. Who, or what, had inflicted the blow that ultimately lead to Slobodin’s death? And why were there hemorrhages on both sides of his head. It was as if someone or something had come up from behind him and struck him repeatedly with both fists before dealing the final blow with a blunt object.
     Zinaida Kolmogorova was found 630 meters (2067 feet) from the cedar tree. She was lying face down with her head towards the tent. She wore two hats, long sleeved undershirt, a sweater, a shirt, and another sweater. She had on two pairs of pants, ski pants, and three pairs of socks. She wore no shoes. Her autopsy revealed a number of injuries to her face and hands, but these were most likely the= result of her struggle to make her way back to the tent. The cause of death was determined to be hypothermia.
The bodies of the hikers who left the cedar tree to make the den were found four months later. In May, the snow started to melt and a Mansi native noticed some cut branches that were forming a rough trail. He followed this trail 50 meters (164 feet) from the cedar and found a pair of black cotton sweatpants, the right leg of which had been cut off with a knife. He also found cedar branches, a young fir tree missing its top, and the left half of a women's wool sweater. The Mansi native had inadvertently discovered the location of the den.
The den is one of the biggest puzzles of the entire Dyatlov Pass incident. The fact that the four hikers were able to build it indicates that they were determined to do anything and everything to survive. And yet, it is still unclear why their attempts didn’t work. The den would have been warm enough to keep the hikers alive for some time, and their bodies were found OUTSIDE of the den, not in it. Autopsies determined that the four hikers who made the den sustained significant, unexplainable internal injuries.
When the search party arrived, they discovered the den under eleven feet of snow. It was made up of a bed of 14 fir tree branches and one birch branch. On top of the branches were some of the hikers’ clothing and other belongings. These included one leg of a pair of ski pants, a thick woolen sweater, a woolen jumper, and a pair of brown pants. Some of the clothing belonged to Krivonischenko and Doroshenko, the two men who died at the cedar tree.
     When the search team found the bodies of Kolevatov and Zolotaryov, they were outside of the den, and they were embraced as if Kolevatov was behind Zolotaryov, trying to protect him, or trying to warm him up. Oddly, both men were fairly well dressed. Zolotaryov wore two hats, a scarf, short and long sleeve shirts, a sweater, and a coat. On the lower part of his body he wore underwear, two pairs of pants plus a pair of ski pants, a pair of socks, and a pair of warm leather burka shoes. The den should have been more than sufficiently warm to keep him alive for days.
     Kolevatov was without a hat or shoes, but the rest of his body was fairly well insulated. He wore an undershirt, long sleeved shirt, two sweaters and a ski jacket. The jacket was found unbuttoned and unzipped--strange for someone trying to stay warm! On his lower body were shorts, and three pairs of pants. On his feet were three pairs of socks, but no shoes.
     When Nikolay Thibeaux-Brignolle’s body was found, it was discovered that he too was well protected from the cold. He wore a fur hat, a woolen hat, a shirt, a sweater, and a fur jacket. Woolen gloves were found in his pocket. Why there weren’t on his hands is a mystery. On the lower part of his body he wore underwear, sweatpants, cotton pants, and ski pants. His feet were protected by woolen socks and a pair of felt boots.
Lyudmila’s body was found wearing long underwear, two pairs of pants, a small hat and three pairs of warm socks, but she was shoeless. She also had on two shirts and two sweaters. One of the two sweaters belonged to Krivonischenko, one of the two men who died under the cedar tree. One of the most baffling things about the sweater she was wearing is that it was found to be highly radioactive. But that was not the only piece of clothing found to be radioactive. Aleksander Kolevatov’s sweater and pants were also found to be radioactive.
The presence of radioactivity on the the two hikers’ clothing is one of the most interesting, and most puzzling parts of the Dyatlov Pass mystery. The radiation levels on the clothing was very high, but the levels had certainly been MUCH higher when the hikers were first contaminated. Why? The bodies of the hikers in the den were found a full four months after they died, and their clothing had essentially been washed by the snow and running water from the time they died until the time the bodies were recovered.
Vladimir Levashov, a professional radiologist who conducted the examination of the clothing found that by rinsing the clothing in cold running water for three hours, the radioactive contamination decreased up to sixty percent. That means that the radioactivity on the clothing had been FAR higher before the bodies were found.
Mr. Levashov concluded that the clothes had either been contaminated by radioactive dust which fell down from the atmosphere, or by direct contact with a radioactive object or substance.
But here’s a question to ask yourself--Why did the Soviet investigators test the bodies for radiation in the first place? To me, this seems like a BIG red flag. It hints that the Soviets knew that some sort of an explosive device had been detonated over the hikers’ tent. This may be what spooked the hikers in the first place, and what caused the group to flee the tent.
But there’s another possible explanation for testing the hikers’ bodies for radiation. Since strange lights were spotted in the area by the Soviets, then they may have tested for radiation in an attempt to find out if the hikers had come in contact with a spacecraft, or if they had been abducted by aliens.
One fascinating aspect of the UFO theory pertains to the camera found on Semyon Zolotaryov’s body. Though the film was water damaged, the images that were processed showed what some believe were lights in the sky. These may have been the mysterious lights reported by others in the area. The man in charge of the Soviet investigation, Lev Ivanov, claimed that during the search, they noticed that the tops of many trees had been burned. He said that he was forced by the KGB to remove any mention of lights in the sky from his report.
     The hikers found at the den had suffered tremendous internal injuries. All four had multiple fractures of the ribs. Thibeaux-Brignolle had an extensive, depressed, multi-splintered fractured skull. Such injuries are similar to those caused by the impact of an automobile moving at high speed.
There was hemorrhaging of the heart muscle, some of which was found to have leaked into the pleural cavity. This means that the hikers were alive when they sustained their injuries which doctors said was the result of some strong external force striking the hikers’ bodies. A forensic expert who was interviewed during the investigation said that, “the internal injuries appearing without any damage to the soft tissue of the chest are very similar to the type of trauma that results from the shock wave of a bomb.”
Dubinina died around 20 minutes after the trauma, Zolotaryov probably lived longer. Thibeaux-Brignolle would have been unconscious from his concussion, but he could have lived as long as 3 hours after the initial impact of the still unknown force.
Some theorize that the four hikers at the den were simply crushed by an avalanche which would explain their internal injuries without the presence of tissue damage. But we know that the hikers died a significant time after they received their internal injuries. Two were found embracing one another in an effort to keep warm. Had they been crushed by a significant weight of snow, they would surely have died almost instantly. Furthermore, the autopsy did not indicate that asphyxiation was a factor in any of their deaths. They received significant internal injuries followed by death by hypothermia.
Doctors and forensic experts agree that had the hikers not received the mysterious internal injuries, they most likely would not have died of hypothermia. Their internal injuries were what ultimately lead to their deaths.
After sixty years, the incident at Dyatlov pass remains one of the most baffling mysteries of all time. After all these years, theories continue to crop up about what happened to the nine hikers. These include, but are not limited to: Murder by local natives; Murder by the Soviets; Fighting within the group itself; Infrasound--ultra low frequency sound created by the compacted snow which may have cause the team to panic; The Soviets mistaking the hikers as escaped convicts; Katabalic winds which caused the group to evacuate the tent; An attack in the middle of the night by a vicious wolverine who blocked the tent’s entrance forcing the group to cut their way out; Methanol poisoning, where the hikers accidentally ingested methanol rather than alcohol causing them to flee the tent; An attack by an interdimentional being who left no footprints in the snow; Beings from UFOs who hunted the team down and essentially willed them to died from hypothermia.
Interest in the incident at Dyatlov Pass remains so strong that this year Russia announced that it is reopening the investigation. But like so many unsolved mysteries, you can be sure that the findings will be disputed by many, and that even more theories will emerge based on any new information that is revealed.
What do you think happened at Dyatlov Pass? Please leave your thoughts in the comments section.

Resources
https://dyatlovpass.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_Pass_incident
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-dyatlov-pass-incident
https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/12/28/dyatlov-pass-incident/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidbressan/2019/02/01/mystery-at-dyatlov-pass/#7c5978a82741
http://forum.dyatlovpass.com/index.php?topic=235.0
https://www.vice.com/en_nz/article/wjj9yb/russias-dyatlov-pass-incident-the-strangest-unsolved-mystery-of-the-last-century
https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/04/europe/dyatlov-pass-incident-scli-intl/index.html
https://www.rbth.com/history/329574-dyatlov-pass-russia-alien-conspiracy
http://www.coral-hull.com/testimony/fallenangelsexposed/dyatlovpass/dyatlov-3.html
https://amnationalistcouncil.wordpress.com/2011/11/21/the-dyatlov-pass-mystery-solved/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10026000/Yuri-Yudin.html
Excerpt from the book, “The Mystery of the Dyaltov Group”

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Workplace Ghost Stories

7/27/2019

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Did you know that the average American will spend roughly a third of their life at work? That averages out to about 90,000 hours over a lifetime. Many of us have horror stories about work that involve annoying bosses or fellow employees who just won’t shut-the-hell up when we’re trying to work, but this newsletter/podcast is about REAL horror stories in the workplace--stories that have to do with ghosts, the supernatural, and the unexplained.
     As a paranormal investigator, I’ve seen my fair-share of haunted offices, stores, and other places of business. I’ve investigated haunted office buildings, a haunted spa, haunted clothing stores, and even a haunted firehouse.
     I received the following email from someone on Facebook who wanted to share their workplace ghost story. And because I am a retired teacher, I think it’s the perfect story to start with. She wrote:
     I’m a teacher at a high school in Westchester County, New York. The school was built in the early 1920’s, and I have been working there for well over 20 years. Although I haven’t had a huge amount of paranormal experiences on-the-job, two incidents stand out that I thought you might be interested in.
One day I was talking to another teacher in a hallway outside of her classroom. Her room was at the end of the hallway so as we were talking, I had a clear view of the entire hallway which runs the length of the school. As we stood there talking, something caught my eye down at the end of the hall. It was a dark shadow figure in the shape of a person, and I watched as it slowly walked across the hall. It came from the custodian’s room on the left, and I could see the full figure of a person--head, shoulders, arms, torso, and legs. It wasn’t a menacing shape, it just looked like the shadow of someone walking across the hall. It wasn’t solid black, but more like a smokey grey that I could see through. This figure went across the hall and made its way to the hallway across from the custodian’s room. The figure didn’t vanish, it simply kept walking down the hall where I lost sight of it. Creepy, right?!
The second incident took place in the auditorium. My classroom is near the backstage door, and I needed to put something on the stage. As I opened the door, I heard beautiful piano music coming from the auditorium piano. The piano isn’t on the stage; it’s in the middle of the auditorium halfway between the stage and the doors at the back of the room. The music that was playing was classical music, and since we have a lot of very talented young musicians in the school I assumed that one of them had cut out of lunch and that they were playing the piano.
     I quietly closed the stage door and walked down the hall to the side entrance to the auditorium. I wanted to tell the student that they should be either at lunch or in class, but I didn’t want to startle them by coming out of the stage curtains. The music was still playing as I walked up the stairs that lead from the main hallway to the auditorium. It took me no more than three steps to get to the top of the stairs and to open the door to the auditorium, but as soon as I put my hand on the doorknob, the music stopped. I opened the door, but there was no one in the auditorium. As I said, the piano was in the middle of the room against one wall, so it was a good 30 feet from the doors at the rear of the auditorium and from the stage. The only other exit was the one that I had just walked in. There was absolutely no way that anyone could have ran away that fast, or hid in the empty auditorium. This happened years ago, but every time I pass the auditorium I think of it and wonder who the ghost was that was playing the piano that day.

The following stories were told by audience members at my library lectures. The first was told by a woman at Reed Memorial Library in Carmel, NY. She said:

     I’m a Certified Nursing Assistant, and I work in a nursing home. I usually work the 3PM to 11PM shift, but one night I was asked to stay over for the 11PM to 7AM shift. At around 2:30 in the morning I was changing one of the patients and I had the door open. There was only one other nursing assistant and one nurse working with me that morning. The nursing assistant was off the floor, and the nurse was sitting in the dayroom down the hall. I was changing the person when I heard a sound like “Huhh”, and out of the corner of my eye I saw somebody walked right past the door in the hallway. I thought it was either the nurse or the other nursing assistant. I came out of the room when I was done and I walked down and checked the two rooms at the end of the hallway. No one was there. I didn’t think anything of it, but later on I told some other people I work with and they told me that they also experienced the same thing.
     Other things have happened in that facility. In the bathrooms are call bells, the kind that have a little switch next to the toilet and you have to pull it down to ring for assistance. There have been times where there are two patients rooming together who can’t get out of bed, and their bathroom call-bell will be pulled down.

Another nursing-related ghost story was told by a woman who attended a lecture at the Somers Library in Somers, NY. She said:
     I was a nurses aid in Somers Manor nursing home before they built the new facility. It was just the nurse and me on the night shift, because that’s how they staffed it. Most of the patients were not really conscious; they were very senile and had dementia. This particular night, the other nurse went to dinner I was there by myself. A little while later I started hearing the patients getting restless, which was very unusual. We had turned the lights down low because the patients were sleeping, and I looked down the hall and I saw an orb -- a very white, light orb that I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. And it went right down the hall, I got chills, and it went into one of the rooms where there were about six patients. I rushed down the hall and I started to walk into the room. I just got to the doorway and then it disappeared. I know I saw it. It was big, around the size of a beach ball. And I didn’t see just a quick glimpse of this thing. I saw it for about 45 seconds to a minute. I watched as it floated down the hall. I’ll tell you one thing, I couldn’t wait for that nurse to come back from dinner!

A teacher was in the audience at a lecture I gave at Reed Memorial Library in Carmel, New York. She shared the following on-the-job ghost story:
I work at a school in New Jersey which was once the home of a very famous family. I’ve had many things happen in the room that I teach in, but most recently I was giving an evening parent/teacher conference and the door to my room kept opening, and the mom was getting really annoyed by it. So she got up and went to go close it -- these are very tall doors -- then she went to sit down. She sat down and all of a sudden she said that someone pushed her chair. I watched her chair rock back and forth with considerable force and the woman said, “Oh my gosh!” And her husband said, “Are you OK?” and then HIS chair got pushed the same way!
Another teacher and I have also smelled a candle, but of course there are never any candles lit in the school. This isn’t the smell of a modern scented candle; it’s just like the smell of a wax candle. We’ve both smelled this in my classroom, and right outside of it. The first day I ever taught in the room I felt a swish of air or something go right past my leg, and I knew right away it was some sort of a presence.

We think of daycare centers as being places buzzing with activity, but we rarely think of the activity as being paranormal! After a lecture I gave in Sherman Library in Sherman, Connecticut, a woman share the following story with the audience:
     I worked at a daycare in Tucson Arizona, and the buildings were made up of two different houses that were kitty-cornered to one another. So you walked into the front door of the daycare and there was a staircase that went up to where there was a storeroom and the staff restroom. The kids never went up there. It was about 6:30 in the morning and there were two teachers in the school when the first little boy showed up for the day. He walks into the front door and looks at the stairs and says in Spanish, “Quien es ese?” which means, “Who is that?” And the teacher says, “Quien is quien?” -- “Who is who?” And he said, “La Mujer!” -- “The woman!” And the teacher said to him, “There’s no woman up there. It’s just me and the other teacher, and she’s right there.” And the boy said, “No, the woman on the stairs. She’s there every day. She says hello to me every day.”
     In the same building, one time the same teacher was there with the last couple of kids at night and she heard something that sounded like a bowling ball rolling upstairs. One of the dad’s walked in to pick up his son and he said, “What’s going on up there?” The teacher said, “I don’t know. I’m the only one here with the kids”. He said, “Are you sure? Because there’s definitely somebody up there.” The dad goes up, looks all around, but there was nobody there.

Some of my favorite on-the-job stories come from electricians, plumbers, and carpenters. They often work in old houses, so they sometimes find themselves in ghostly situations. The following story was told by a plumber during a lecture at Danbury Library in Danbury, Connecticut:
     I’m a plumber, and working in some houses you get like an eerie feeling in old houses. But this was in Harold Leever Cancer Center. I was working at night. We would go in after everybody had their chemo; so we had to work at night and get done and make it look like we weren’t there. So, my apprentice and I went up. The nurse said, “Everybody’s done. Go ahead. You can start.” We go up there and we’re starting to get ready, getting our cart and our tools. And we look across and I would say about fifty-feet away from us we saw a man go into one of the patient rooms. And I said, “I thought everybody was out of here.” And I go to the apprentice, “You seen that guy go in there?” And he saw him too. So we walked down there, and we go in that room, and it was cold and every hair on the back of my neck and my arms stood up. But there was nobody in there. We both saw the same guy. Bald, tall, glasses, suit-and-tie on. We told the nurses about it the next time we went to work and they were like, “Look at this picture. Does it look like this guy?” And we were like, “Yeah. That’s the guy.” It was a doctor who had passed away a few years earlier. I’ll tell you, it was the freakiest thing. And what was so cool was that my apprentice had seen the same thing.

Another hospital related ghost story was sent to me from someone on Facebook who had an amazingly creepy workplace story he wanted to share. He said:
I work at an eye bank, and I've done corneal procurements on thousands in my time--and one literally spoke to me once! None of my colleagues believe me, of course, but it really happened.
On this particular day, the eye bank I work for sent me to procure the cornea from a deceased woman who was listed as a donor. When I arrived at the hospital I let myself into the morgue. Usually I'm escorted, but back then they just gave me the key. I found the correct donor in a multiple freezer unit and wheeled her into the autopsy suite. I turned the lights on, set up my equipment and started prepping her. I was definitely totally alone in the room.
The woman had already donated other tissues in the O.R. before my arrival, and I was the last to work on her. As I was working, I was facing the entrance to the autopsy suite, but I was totally focused on the task. Suddenly, I heard a woman's voice with a distinctly New England accent ask plainly and clearly, "Who are you?" Without looking up I replied, "I'm James from the eye bank." There was no follow-up conversation. I assumed that some security guard had popped her head into the main door or something, but when nothing else was said, I looked up but saw no one. I say that the voice had a New England accent because the words all ran together, sort of like "Whowahyou?"
Completely puzzled, I could only draw one conclusion--The voice must have come from the spirit of the woman I was working on. Being the professional that I am, I decided to carry on with my work. Afterward, on the drive back to the office, I tried to interpret what had just happened. Thinking back on the experience, I wasn't sure if I heard the voice with my ears, or if it was in my head. But it seemed extremely loud and clear, albeit dislocated--as if it came not from her lips per se.
I considered researching if the donor was indeed someone who had grown up in New England, but I didn't pursue it. I tend not to delve too deeply into the personal lives of the cornea donors. I believe it to be inappropriate, so that's why I didn't investigate further. To this day I believe that the voice I heard came from her, from the woman I was working on in the autopsy room.

In 2018, I conducted one of the my favorite paranormal investigations ever at a firehouse in Tarrytown, New York. You can read the full story in the Case File section of my website, but here are a few excerpts that illustrate the type of activity that the firemen experienced while working in the firehouse.

The sound of phantom footsteps is a common occurrence in the firehouse, and everyone who works there has heard them. One firefighter, Jake, shared the following story:
“The other night I was in the engine room where the fire engines are parked,” he said. “I opened the door that leads from the engine room to the foyer and it sounded like I startled somebody and I heard them run up the stairs. It sounded like someone had been standing on the second landing, and then I heard footsteps shoot up the stairs. They went all the way up to the second floor and then stopped as if they were standing outside the meeting room door. I thought it might be a homeless person or something. One of the other firemen who also heard the running footsteps ran upstairs to check it out, but there was nobody up there.”
Another firefighter, Ryan, confirmed hearing the sound of ghostly feet in the firehouse. “You’ll hear footsteps going up and down the upstairs hallway all the time,” he said. Ryan also talked about the sound of furniture being moved around in one of the upstairs rooms.
“If you’re sitting in the engine room, right above is the meeting room,” Ryan explained. “It’ll sound like people moving the furniture around in that room. There are heavy, wooden meeting chairs up there, and when you drag them across the floor they make a really loud sound. So it’ll sound like people are rearranging the furniture up there, but there’s obviously nothing going. There’s never anybody up there when we go to check it out.”
One of the firefighters went up to the meeting room to demonstrate what the chairs sound like when they are moved across the floor. A few minutes later I heard the sound of one of the chairs being moved. It was a very loud, distinct sound; and one that could not be mistaken for anything else.
Jake shared a story that involved strange sounds coming from the kitchen on the second floor of the firehouse. He said, “One time, Bryan and I were alone in the firehouse. We took the elevator to the second floor and as we got out of the elevator we heard a cabinet slam in the kitchen, so we thought somebody was up there. We walked down the hall to the kitchen, and as soon as we opened the door we heard another cabinet slam shut. We looked around, but there was no one there. It freaked us out so we came back downstairs.”
Another fireman, Dennis, told us about the front door opening and closing on its own. He brought us over to the front door and explained, “This door is really heavy. It’s unlocked right now, but when it’s locked you have to punch a number into the keypad to get in. After you do that you’ll hear a click, and when you open the door it’s really heavy to open. One time I was alone in the garage, and there was no one else in the firehouse. All of a sudden I heard the front door open and shut, so I looked out the window but I didn’t see anything. Then, like a minute later, I heard it open again and I looked out the window and I watched the door open halfway, and then SLAM shut. So I ran from the engine room to the foyer thinking that maybe someone was in here, but no one was around. The door didn’t shut slowly the way it would if you just let it go--it really SLAMMED shut like someone outside was pushing it. There was no wind or anything that could have made it do that. The door is too heavy anyway and, like I said, you need a code to unlock it.”
The other eerie thing that the firemen report hearing is the sound of someone walking up and down the upstairs hallways accompanied by the sound of jingling keys. They describe it as sounding like someone has a large keychain on their belt that has a lot of keys on it, and that they’re jingling the keychain as they walk.
Dennis said, “There was an older firefighter, a real prominent guy named Ian who passed away a long time ago. Some of the old firefighters swear that the jingling key sound is Ian because he used to have this big set of keys on his belt. Everybody here has heard someone walking up and down the upstairs hallway, and the sound of keys jingling.”
Ryan was anxious to tell us about an experience he had in the upstairs rec room. He brought us to the room and said, “This is the old rec room where we used to sit and hang out and watch TV. We have the TV downstairs now because we didn’t like being up here ‘cause it kind of got a little too creepy. And the hallway that leads to the kitchen and this room is where you would hear someone walking. We would look over to see who was here, and no one walks through, or like you hear the keys jingling. There would also be times when you would hear the front door opening, and you’d go out to look out the window over there and no one else was here. If you open that door downstairs and you shut it, you’re going to hear it up here.”
Ryan had an encounter with something in the rec room that he never forgot. He said, “One day we were all sitting here in the rec room, and I was sitting right by the door. I was in one of these chairs, sitting right here. I was leaning back in my chair, but not to the point where I was going to fall over or anything, I was just leaning back a little. Then all of a sudden I felt someone grab me by my collar and pull me back hard, and I fell backwards. My chair totally fell backwards, and I fell on the floor. I jumped up thinking someone was there and that they had played a trick on me by pulling my collar and making me fall, but the door was closed. I had goosebumps and my hair stood up.”
The firefighters all have had unusual experiences in the firehouse, but one stands out from the rest--a full body apparition witnessed by two firemen. Jake explained, “But here’s the thing that really creeped me out the most. Bryan and I were backing one of the trucks out of the engine room one night, and the lights were on in the engine room. At night you can see into the engine room from outside when the lights are on in there. The garage door had closed and we were backing the truck up. Bryan and I looked at the garage door and we both saw a shadow figure walk past the six garage door windows. It looked like the head and shoulders of a man walking behind the glass, like a shadow. It was walking between the garage door and the truck.
     I told Bryan to stop the truck because I thought it was like a reflection or something moving. And then this thing just continued to walk across the engine room, in front of the truck, then through the door that leads from the garage into the foyer. When it got to the foyer we both saw the full figure of a man walk into the elevator. There were no details, it was just a black shadow of a man, but the entire full figure from his head to his feet.
     I didn’t say anything to Bryan until I saw the figure walk into the elevator. I was like, ‘Did you see that?’ And Bryan was like, ‘Yeah, I was just about to tell you.’ That was the freakiest and craziest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“How tall did the person look?” I asked.

“It was probably shorter than me, maybe around 5’ 10," Jake said.

“So just to clarify, you had shut the garage door?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Jake said. “The garage door was shut, and you have the six windows in there on the garage door. The lights were on so you could see in. It looked like it was walking between the garage and truck that was parked in there. So it was only cut off at the shoulders in there because that was just as much as we could see because of the size of the windows. And then it went right into the foyer. It was literally like someone just went to the elevator. And we both saw it, and I was really creeped out.”
Bryan joined us and told us about his experiences in the firehouse.
“I’m sure about the footsteps coming up the steps,” he said. “I’ll be coming in here some days and it sounds like somebody is literally running up the steps and I think it’s one of our members who sometimes stays here or something. And I’m like, ‘Alright, I’ll get him a cup of coffee or something.’ Nothing. I’ll go up and check. Nothing.”

“Are the footsteps always running?” I asked.

“Two times when I heard them on the steps, it sounded like somebody was on the last three steps with their feet scuffling around, like running up the steps. It’s sounds like, ‘Oh, somebody’s coming in. Let me run as fast as I can to get away so I’m not seen.’ I’d say I’ve heard the footsteps more than ten times, especially when we used to hang out up there before we moved the TV to the engine room.
     I saw a figure walk through the engine room, past the windows on the garage door, then through the door into the elevator. Jake and I saw it clear as day, then it was gone.
     I heard the chairs in the conference room moving around many times. I’ve heard the cabinets slamming shut in the kitchen upstairs. I went up to investigate, nobody was there. I’ve seen the front door opening and closing a couple of times when nobody was here. I used to sit in the engine room and I’d hear something like wet feet walking, and sometimes I’d hear keys jingling in the hallway upstairs.”

The Haunted Spa

I received an email from a woman who wanted to know if I would consider doing a paranormal investigation of the Day Spa she worked at in a small town in Connecticut. Of course I jumped at the opportunity, but I admit that it’s sometimes difficult to pinpoint exactly who might be haunting a business. Businesses often change hands or undergo major renovations. Two small stores may be bought up and become one large office space; a large space may be divided into smaller storefronts, offices, or other types of businesses; a pizza place might turn into a beauty salon. You get the picture. Luckily, the investigation turned out to be one of the most interesting I’ve ever conducted and I am happy to be able to share it with you here.

     I arrived at the spa early one Saturday morning and met one of the workers, Chiara. I asked if I could do a walkthrough of the place before being filled in on the details of the haunting and she allowed me to walk through the spa alone.
     A long hallway runs the length of the spa with several treatment rooms on either side. The area closest to the gift shop felt clean, but I felt that a spirit often makes his way into the gift shop area and into the treatment rooms closest to the front of the store. I asked Chiara to keep the lights out for the time being, as I didn’t want any electrical current to influence what I was feeling, or possibly scare away any spirits that might be around.
     As I slowly walked down the dark hallway I began to get a familiar feeling—the feeling that a spirit was present. I often describe this as the feeling you would get if you drank several strong cups of coffee, and the caffeine kicked in all at once. I get a shaky feeling inside, something like feeling afraid without actually being afraid.
     As I neared the end of the hallway it became obvious that something was with me. It was a male spirit, and the name I was picking up was Andrew. The feeling of this spirit’s presence grew in intensity as I walked down the hallway toward the last two treatment rooms, and as I turned into the last room on the left I came face-to-face with a strong male presence. Although he didn’t seem angry that I was there, he was very reluctant to communicate with me. After a short time he moved out of this room and into the room across the hall. I followed him into the room and tried to pick up some intuitive information, but once again he moved out. Whoever this spirt was, he wanted to be left alone even though I was saying out loud that I was there to help him. I turned the lights on in these two rooms so I could take a few readings with my EMF meter. I took some photos, then made my way back to the front of the spa where Chiara was waiting for me.
     I told her about the male presence, and which rooms I felt him in. She confirmed that the rooms I had pinpointed were the rooms where things were seen and felt by employees and customers alike. Chiara joined me on my second trip down the hall where I conducted an EVP session and took some more photos, then we made our way back to the front of the store where I asked her to tell me about the activity that has been plaguing the workers and clients.
     She said,“It started with me just feeling creepy down there. The room on the left side of the hallway where you are feeling the ghost — It’s that room that I always felt weird about. In the morning I come into the store and light the candles to get ready for the day, and it always just feels creepy down there. It’s right in the exact spot you felt it. It’s in those two rooms at the end of the hall. I also feel cold spots down there.
     One day I was in the first room, and I was about to come out to go into one of the massage rooms and I saw a man-- or rather, a large, dark shadow in the shape of a man. This shadow was very dark, but not solid black. I couldn’t see features, but I could see that he was taller than me, around 5’ 8” or so. I saw it very quickly, but it was very clear.”
     Another day, Chiara saw something else that totally took her by surprise. “I was in the front of the store looking down the hallway and I saw a leg walking into Nora’s room. It was just the end of the leg, the way you would see it if someone had walked into a room and you just saw them taking their last step into the room. It had on pants and a shoe. It looked like a man’s leg. Of course, I took a look in there, but the room was empty.
     Another day, one of the Reiki therapists walked a client down the hall to bring her into one of the treatment rooms. As soon as they walked into the room the client got startled. She stopped, caught her breath and said, “Oh, I thought someone was sitting there!”
     One day, something very unusual happened in the giftshop area which was witnessed by two people. Chiara said, “Nora was working in the front of the shop and I was in the back. I heard her call my name, and she sounded really scared. So I came running out and found Nora standing there staring and pointing at one of the tables. We have a large, very heavy metal decorative piece that’s roughly in the shape of large piece of coral. It weighs about 10 pounds, and it always sits in the middle of this glass table.” At this point Chiara walked over to the table and showed me the object. It was made out of shiny, silver and gold metal, and it was indeed quite heavy.
     Chiara continued, “So I came out and Nora is pointing at the table, and I looked over and saw the coral piece was no longer in the center of the table - it was balanced in mid-air on the edge of the table! The entire thing was off of the table, and just a tiny edge of it was touching the table’s edge. It looked like something was either holding it up, or that it was levitating.
     So, as I ran out Nora is pointing at it and as soon as I looked at it it fell flat on the floor. But it didn’t just fall down, it fell at an angle so it ended up UNDER the glass table perfectly upright. And even stranger, even though it’s a heavy, metal object it didn’t make a sound when it landed. The way it was levitating, and the way it ended upright under the table without making a sound — it’s just not possible. We tried every which way to make it to that, but we couldn’t do it.” I tried to make the shell balance on the edge of the table the way she described, but there was absolutely no way to make it do that. It was simply too heavy.
     Although moving and levitating objects would be enough to frighten anyone, by far the most chilling occurrence was the sound of a man screaming. “This past week, three days in a row, Carol and I were right here in the front of the store at about 9:30 in the morning. The first day we heard a man screaming. It was really frightening.” Chiara imitated the sound she and Carol heard--a blood curdling scream. I asked Chiara where the scream came from. “It was down there at the end of the hallway,” she said. “Our first instinct was to help this man who sounded like he was in agony, and Carol actually started to head down the hall. Then she stopped and said, ‘What am I doing? There’s nobody here but you and me.’ It was a loud scream, definitely a man’s voice. It was very scary.
     The following day we heard him again, but this time it sounded like he was calling out to us. He said, “Hey!” in a loud voice. The day after that we heard a woman’s voice say “Hello?” the way you would if you walked into a house or a store and you wanted to let someone know you were there. But of course, there was no one in the store at the time because we hadn’t opened yet.”
     I knew that I had to do something to help this poor soul, so I told Chiara that I would do a clearing. Right before I was to begin the clearing the spa’s owner, Ruby, arrived. I told her what I had picked up during the investigation, and the three of us walked down the hall to the room where I felt the spirit. As we walked into the room I said, “He’s been moving around all of the rooms at the end of the hall, but he’s in this room now. I’m going to try to get him to move on.” Just as I said this, the most amazing thing happened — soft music started playing all over the spa. The sound system had turned on by itself.
     “That’s impossible!” said Chiara. You have to log into the computer, go to Spotify, and choose the spa station.” We quickly walked back to the office where the computer was. Although the computer was turned on, no one had logged onto it.
     We walked back to the treatment room where the spirit was. Ruby and Chiara were still talking about how amazing it was that the music had started playing by itself when the music in the room we were in began to get louder and louder. The volume in each room can only be turned up by pressing the volume button on the speaker. We walked out into the hallway to check the volume in the other rooms. Every room had soft music playing except for the room where I felt the spirit. In this room, the volume was turned up loud. It was clear that “Andrew” had made his presence known, and that he might be persuaded to move on to be with his relatives and friends on the other side.
     I asked Ruby and Chiara to wait in the front of the store as I conducted the clearing. For this clearing used a spray I made earlier that morning out of white sage leaves and rosemary, both of which have clearing properties. To this I added some holy water. As I walked around the room I said a number of prayers; asked angels, saints and spirit guides to help guide this spirit on his way. I then got into a meditative state and in my mind’s eye I opened a doorway of brilliant white light. The things we imagine become a reality in other dimensions, and this doorway was the spirit’s entrance to the other side. I said out loud, “It is time for you to leave now. Your family and friends are waiting for you. They have waited for you for a long time, and they are anxious to be with you again.”
     At this point an unbelievable sadness washed over me. I actually had to hold myself back from crying. It was a feeling of complete hopelessness and sorrow. The message I got was, “No one is waiting for me. I have no one. No one is waiting there for me.” This explained the sadness I felt earlier, and the reluctance for this spirit to move on. Although he was in agony, he felt as if there was no one for him on the other side, and that staying where there are people would be better than leaving for the unknown. I explained to him that God is on the other side, and that unbelievable beauty and peace was waiting for him. I continued to urge him to leave, and felt that he might be willing but that he was still hesitating.
     In the end, I left the doorway of light open. I would close it remotely after a few days, hoping that “Andrew” would go through on his own. I made my way back to the front of the spa where Chiara and Ruby were waiting for me. “Did you finish the clearing,” they asked? “We both felt so sad when you were doing it.” It seems that the women had picked up the same sorrow that I felt when doing the clearing.
     I left the spa with little doubt that I had made contact with a very lonely spirit. Only time will tell if the clearing worked and if this poor soul eventually joined the multitude of friends and relatives he is totally unaware of and who are waiting for him on the other side. If Andrew is still there, I’ll be back to run another clearing until he finds the peace he deserves.

Listen to the EVP below that I captured at the spa. The first was captured during my first visit. At the time, Chiara I were in the gift shop area and I asked her if she ever feel cold spots in the spa. Chiara said, "Well, down there, yeah," indicating the end of the hall. A male voice then comes in and says, "Come down".
     The second EVP was captured during a return visit to the spa where I did a second clearing. The voice I captured while I was clearing one of the rooms says, "My name is Derek".

I hope you’ve enjoyed these workplace ghost stories. If you have any others, I’d love to hear them. Please write me at barrypirro@yahoo.com.

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The Haunting of an American Icon

6/30/2019

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Anyone who has been to my lectures knows how much fun they can be. Sure, I tell a lot of pretty scary ghost stories, but the fun comes at the very end when people share their own true paranormal experiences. You have no idea how many people have seen or heard a ghost, or have had something totally unexplainable happen to them. After the lectures, there is usually a small crowd waiting to talk to me in private, and I’m always happy to oblige.
After a lecture I did last October, a woman stayed after and told me about a haunted estate that her friend lives on; then she casually mentioned that it was once the home of one of the most famous American icons in history! Obviously, I was fascinated by the ghostly stories she shared with me, but when she asked if I would like to visit this historic home I was dumbfounded. First of all, this house is not open to the public, so the only people who are invited there are the current homeowners' friends and, occasionally, historians. What’s more, no one has ever conducted a paranormal investigation there. I would be the first. So, as you can imagine, I jumped at the opportunity to visit the estate. The next day I contacted the homeowner, and we set the date of my visit for January 26, 2019.
Now before we go any further, I would love more than anything to tell you the name of this historic figure, but I can’t. As is the case with all of my investigations, preserving the privacy of those who are kind enough to open their homes to me is of the utmost importance. So if you care to guess who it is, be my guest--just don’t ask me if you’re right or wrong, because I’ll never tell! But for the sake of having something to call this distinguished and very famous gentleman, I will henceforth refer to him as Mr. Forrester.
     The Forrester estate lies at the end of a long, narrow, winding country road dotted with modest private homes. I pulled my car up to the two stone pillars that flank the driveway and stopped to consider the hundreds of people who passed through these same gates in the early 1900’s. How thrilled they must have been to spy these stately stone columns in the distance as they approached the estate. After all, the man they were about to visit was a living legend, and from all I’ve read about him, he was hysterically funny and a great host. As I drove past the columns and entered the grounds, I was as thrilled as any guest who had met the great man himself all those years ago. With any luck, I still might have a chance to meet him--or at least to meet his ghost.
     The main house sits on top of a hill that overlooks 28 acres of beautifully manicured lawns that cascade down to the surrounding woods. It is a fine looking house--large, but by no means ostentatious. The house was originally nestled in the middle of over 200 acres of land, so one can imagine how peaceful and serene this country home must have been.
     I had a special assistant joining me on this investigation--my son Ryan. Ryan pulled up to the house a few minutes after I arrived, and after getting our ‘ghost hunting’ gear out of the car we walked up to the front door and rang the bell. The homeowners, Marissa and Jack, greeted us at the door and invited us inside.
     As soon as I walked in the front door my psychic senses immediately kicked into gear. I felt strong energy in the front hallway. I was sure that I was feeling more than just my own excitement about entering this historic home. This was the very same doorway that hundreds of guests had used to enter the home of this larger than life gentleman, so I have no doubt that their excitement and anticipation left an indelible imprint on the entranceway.
Ryan and I put down our gear in the kitchen, and Marissa invited us to do a walkthrough of the house. As I explored the first floor of the house not much was coming to me, until I entered the dining room. Here I immediately felt very strong energy along one wall. I sensed that this was a place where people met and socialized, and where guests were treated to hearing Mr. Forrester’s humorous observations about life. I could feel his strong energy all along the back wall of the dining room near the three french doors that overlooked the rear of the estate. As I stood there looking out at the beautiful lawn that ran down to the woods below, I could imagine the man standing at these doors smoking a cigarette and contemplating the beauty of his new home. It certainly was a stunningly beautiful place. When Forrester moved here in the early 1900s, he praised the estate for its peace and tranquility.
     I walked back and forth in this room for a long time and wondered why it was just along this one wall that I was feeling such strong energy. The rest of the room felt clear. It was almost as if the energy was coming from the patio area that lay just beyond the French doors. I was told later that an important family wedding ceremony was held on the back patio. Family was extremely important to this man, so it’s very possible that the energy I was feeling was connected to that ceremony and other family celebrations that once took place in this room and on the patio.
I was lost in my thoughts when Marissa walked into the room, cell phone in hand, and apologized for disturbing me. She was on the phone with someone who had a first-hand paranormal experience in the house, and she was anxious for me to talk to her. Her name was Katie, and she and her mother had stayed in the home two years earlier. It was summer, and the two were the only people on the estate, the homeowners being away at the time. I took the phone from Marissa, and Katie shared the following story.
     “This happened two years ago,” she said. “I was 21 years old at the time. My mom and I were staying over that summer, it was just the two of us in the house, and I slept in what had been Mr. Forrester’s bedroom. It was hot that night, so I was just in my shirt and my underwear. I fell asleep with no blankets on, just the sheet.
I woke up in the middle of the night, and the entire bed had been made around me; the quilt tucked into the mattresses and everything.”
I said, “I know it was just you and your mom in the house at the time. Did you think that she was playing a prank at first?”
     “No,” Katie said. “I was half asleep when I woke up and saw it, so I thought, ‘Oh, I guess I must have just pulled the covers over myself.’ But when I woke up in the morning I was like, “What the hell? Who did this?”
     “Were the covers tucked in around your body?” I asked.
     “No,” she said. “They were tucked UNDER the mattress. It was just like someone had made the bed and tucked the quilt and the sheets and everything under all four sides of the mattress.”
     “So, you were kind of locked in there like a tamale!” I said.
     “Yes!”, Katie exclaimed. “It was crazy. It was so crazy. It was really weird.”
     I asked, “Was the bed neatly made? In front of your face, where your neck would be, was the quilt folded down?”
     “I honestly don’t remember,” Katie said. “I just know that everything was pulled neatly. It was just like someone had made the bed with me in it!”
I hung up the phone and thought, ‘What an amazing story!’ Two things occurred to me. First, Mr. Forrester was a kind man, but I couldn’t see him tucking someone in at night. It just didn’t suit his personality. At the same time, he was a very funny man. I could definitely see him doing something like this as a prank. As a matter of fact, Mr. Forrester wrote about a similar practical joke in a piece of fiction he published in 1876. In the story, a young character played a joke on a friend while he slept.
But there is another possible explanation. After Mr. Forrester’s death, the house was used for a short time as a hospital for recovering war veterans. Mr. Forrester’s room housed soldiers who were recuperating from wounds they sustained in the war, and they were attended to by a small staff of nurses. The description of the way the bed was made--the sheets and quilt being tucked underneath the mattress--is reminiscent of the way a soldier would make a bed, or the way a nurse would make a bed. Of course, neither would make the bed this way with a person in it! So, the mystery continues.
I asked Marissa if she or her husband had experienced anything unusual in the Forrester bedroom. She told me that in all the years they lived here, they’ve spent just two nights in the bedroom. “We had intended it to be the master bedroom,” Marissa explained, “but that was short-lived. As soon as we moved into the house we tried to sleep in there--but we never fell asleep. We never got one minute sleep in that room. We just lay there for two nights in a row, then we gave up and made the room down the hall the master bedroom.”
In fact, in all the years they owned the home there were just three people who have actually slept in the Forrester bedroom--Katie, a visiting historian, and a girl named Jeanne. “Jeanne was the first person to spend the night in the bedroom room,” Marissa said. “She was actually the only person up to that point who had slept in that room. But that didn’t go well either.
We were away for a week, and my friend Diana and her sixteen-year-old daughter Jeanne were taking care of the dogs for us. Rather than have them drive over each day, which would have been a long drive in each direction, I invited them to stay over.
     One night Diana, was sleeping in our bedroom while Jeanne slept in the Forrester bedroom. Diana woke up in the middle of the night because she heard Jeanne come down the hall from the Forrester bedroom. She then heard her come into the bedroom and stop by her bed. She thought that Jeanne was standing right at the end of the bed. Diana said, ‘What Jeanne, what is it? Jeanne, what is it?’ When her daughter didn’t respond Diana said, ‘Jeanne, it’s not funny anymore,’ then she flipped on the light. The room was empty. She was absolutely convinced that Jeanne was right there because she heard her coming down the hall and into the room. She ran down the hall to check on Jeanne, but she was in bed, sound asleep. After that, Diana refused to stay in the house. I tried to talk to her about it, and I reminded her that no one was hurt. It was just a sound--like the sounds my husband and I used to hear when we first moved in.”
     Soon after Marissa and Jack purchased the estate, they began to hear strange sounds outside. I asked Marissa to tell me about these mysterious sounds. “This happened during the first year and a half that we were here. It was much more pronounced the first week we were here, but now it doesn’t happen at all. There would be the sound of crunching on the gravel driveway, and I would run and look out the window to see who it was, but there was never anyone there. The sound of the gravel would be just about the amount of time that you would expect for someone to come onto the property from the road and pull up outside the house. But it didn’t sound like a car. It sounded like the wheels of a carriage. But like I said, I would always look out, and there would never be anyone there.
     Jack and I were always aware of the gravel sound. We were hyper-aware of it because one of our dogs was very protective. She was a really sweet dog, but she was scared of everybody. And she was a fear biter, so we were super cautious about opening the door. The reason I say all of this is because we were very, very alert and aware of the sound of people coming. So when there were gravel sounds it wasn’t like, ‘The mailman’s here!’ It was more like, ‘Quick, get the dog!’”
Marissa and Jack weren’t the only ones to hear strange sounds at night. I interviewed a family friend who stayed over with her daughter. She said, “One weekend my daughter and I were staying over while the family was away. I was sleeping in Marissa’s room, which is right over the back patio, and that’s where I would hear footsteps--on the slate patio underneath my window. It was like someone was actually walking around on the patio. But then when I looked out there and turned the lights on, there was absolutely no one there. My daughter and I would sometimes hear other noises outside, and the dog would pick up his head as if he had heard them too, and we’d look outside to see if anything was out there but there never was. Once in a while we would hear the floors creaking inside the house. That frightened us a little bit, but then we’re like, ‘Well, if it’s Mr. Forrester, at least we know it’s a friendly ghost!’”
     The family’s housekeeper, Bernice, was the only person to actually see something strange on the property--an eerie, full body apparition of a woman with a large dog. Bernice was working the day I arrived, so I asked if she wouldn’t mind showing me exactly where she was when she saw this mysterious woman. It was cold that day, so Bernice, Ryan and I bundled up and walked out the front door and across the front lawn to a spot that overlooks the property.
     Bernice looked down the road to the front gates and said, “I started working here about three years ago. This happened somewhere between the spring and summer while I was taking care of Marissa’s youngest boy. We were here on the front lawn playing and I looked down the hill toward the driveway entrance and saw an old lady walking on the road about to come onto the property. She had a big brown dog with her, and she was coming from the direction of the pool house which is just down the road. When I saw her she was almost coming past the posts that lead onto the property. I thought, ‘I wasn’t told that anyone was coming today. Maybe it’s someone from the neighborhood.’ I picked up the boy then looked back at the driveway--and there was nobody there! I thought,‘That’s strange. She couldn’t have moved that fast because she’s old, so where did she go?’ I looked everywhere.”
     I asked Bernice how old she thought the woman was. “I don’t know because she was far away, but she was definitely an older woman. When I saw her, I wasn’t thinking that she was a ghost or anything like that. I’m thinking she was just a person, maybe a neighbor. I tried looking around the property because I thought maybe she was walking around, but it only took a couple of seconds for me to pick the boy up. I picked him up because I thought she might be coming up to the house where we were, and she had a big dog. Someone in the neighborhood walking around with a dog, you know? I picked him up because he’s so little and I was worried about the dog, but a second later I looked and she wasn’t there. I’m looking around and she’s not here. I couldn’t believe it because I just saw her a few seconds ago. ”
     “You said the dog was brown. How big would you say he was?” I asked.
     “It was a large brown dog,” she said. “About four feet tall.”
     I asked Bernice to describe what the old woman was wearing. She said, “She was wearing a dress, like an old fashioned dress. The type of dress that you would see in pictures from a long time ago. The dress was very long. Maybe not all the way down to the ground, but very long. Since then I’ve looked to see if I can find a picture of the kind of dress she was wearing, but I can’t find one that looks exactly like it. One thing I noticed is that she was wearing…you know when a person is cooking they’re wearing something over them to protect their clothes? An apron. That’s it. I think she had an apron over her dress, or something that looked like an apron.”
     I asked Bernice if she was frightened when she saw her, but she said that she wasn’t. At first she was just puzzled. She said, “I looked around and thought, ‘I’m not crazy. I know there was a person over there, but where did she go? No one could walk or run that fast; especially an old woman with a dog. I looked around thinking that maybe she was sitting down somewhere. I tried looking around, but you can see everywhere from here and she wasn’t anywhere. I wasn’t afraid then, but as I’m telling you the story I’m feeling a chill just thinking about it!”
     I looked down the stately driveway to the gates where Bernice had seen the mysterious woman with the dog. I could see for myself that there was no way anyone could be seen walking onto the property from the road, then vanish a few seconds later. It’s just impossible because there’s a clear view of the gates and the surrounding woods from the front lawn.
     The entire time we were on the lawn talking, I had been recording our conversation using a digital recorder. A few days after the investigation I listened back to the recording and made a startling discovery. I had picked up an EVP--a spirit voice--as Bernice was telling her story. The voice was quiet, so I boosted the volume and removed some of the background hiss to get a better idea of what it was saying. It was clearly a man’s voice, and as far as I could tell he spoke with a slight accent, either German or Scottish. To me, and to everyone I played it for, he seems to be saying, “Couldn’t pass”.
     Keep in mind, the only people on the lawn were Bernice, Ryan, and myself. My son didn’t talk the entire time I was interviewing Bernice, and there was no one else on the lawn with us.
Listen for yourself. In the following clip, you’ll hear me say to Bernice, “So, she was close to the post when you saw her …” Bernice answers, “Yeah, yeah” and immediately after, the man’s voice jumps in and says, “Couldn’t pass”. I repeat the voice several times in this clip because it goes by so quickly.

What could this strange message mean? It’s possible the the voice was that of a former grounds worker who had been listening in on our conversation. It’s interesting that Bernice and I had been talking about the woman about to walk through the gates when the voice says, “Couldn’t pass”. It was as if he was saying that the woman couldn’t pass the gates for some reason. But why? Maybe the woman had been a neighbor and she was not allowed on the property. Or, maybe he knew that she too was a ghost, and that she literally couldn’t pass the gates because she was not a living person.
     We walked back into the house, thankful to be out of the cold and Marissa said that she wanted to tell us about an amazing thing she and her family witnessed in the upstairs master bedroom. We walked upstairs to the bedroom and Marrisa shared the following story.
“I had gone to a dinner party one night,” she said, “and I was shocked to hear how many people had personal paranormal experiences. It wasn’t like, ‘My cousin or my mother saw a ghost.’ These people were telling their own firsthand experiences. I was really surprised at the sheer number of regular, normal, trustworthy people who had stories.
      So when I came home I was thinking of all of these stories. I walked into our bedroom and my husband was in bed reading to our youngest son. Our older son was in his room, but when he heard me come upstairs he came into the bedroom to say hi, so all four of us were there.
      I said to my husband, ‘You’re never going to believe this. This person, this person, all these people who you know were sharing their ghost stories at the party. You’d never believe how many people have ghost stories from their own houses. You’d be so surprised.’ And while I’m saying this we all just stopped cold. We all stood exactly as we were, stock-still—our youngest son included, which is a lot for him. A toy car rolled out from behind this chair. It just rolled like this.” Marissa paused her story to show us how the car came from behind the chair in a curve, then straightened out. “It came across the room, and it came to rest at my feet. Now, if it had been any other time and we had been talking about anything else, that exact same experience probably wouldn’t have registered that way. I would have assumed, ‘Oh, I never knew that that toy was a pull-back car that moves when you pulled it back, or there must be an air vent that I didn’t know about.’ I would have assumed that it was one of those things. But the timing of it was just weird. And it wasn’t a pull-back toy. It was just a regular toy car.”
     Marissa was anxious to have Jack tell me his version of the story, so she called him upstairs and asked that he share it with me. Jack said, “I was in bed reading to our son, and I was kind of groggy. I just remember a car, a toy car, coming out of nowhere. It was over there and it kind of came rushing over. My wife was talking to me about the party she had just come from, and this car just took off. It was pretty fast. It was one of those toy cars, and it just started taking off. It started over there, and it came all the way over to here to the middle of the room. And I was like, ‘Alright, that’s weird!’”
     I asked Jack if his son would be willing to tell me his version of the story. Luckily he had just gotten home from school, so Jack asked him to come into the bedroom and tell me what he had witnessed that day. The boy said, “It was a toy car, and it was weird because it started here behind the chair, and it rolled AROUND the chair. It definitely wasn’t the kind of car that you pull back then let go to make it go by itself. It was just a regular toy car, like a Matchbox car. I remember it coming around the chair. It came out from behind the chair, then it slowed down. It moved slowly, and I thought it was going to stop. But it kept going all the way to here.” At this point, the boy pointed to a spot in the middle of the room--the same spot his mother and father said the car stopped.”It was going pretty slowly,” he continued, “then it was going really slow at the end.”
     I was impressed that all three had seen the same thing, and that their stories were nearly identical. The only discrepancy was the speed at which the car moved. Marissa and her son said it moved pretty slowly, while Jack thought that it shot out quickly from behind the chair. All agreed that the car came out from behind the chair, not in a straight line but in a curve. They also agreed that it had travelled approximately seven feet, and that it came to rest in the middle of the floor.
     I thanked Jack and his son for sharing their stories and decided to explore the other rooms on this floor. I was hoping to pick up some intuitive information that might help solve the mystery of whose spirit resides in this house. As I walked toward the front of the house, I suddenly stopped at the top of the staircase. There was a strong feeling here. Something had happened right on this spot. My head began to hurt, but the feeling quickly passed. I got a sense that someone had either fallen on this spot, or that they had experienced some sort of physical distress here. I later learned that Mr. Forrester had spent his last years in this house, and that his health had deteriorated considerably soon after he moved in.
     I turned right at the top of the stairs and walked into a bedroom at the far end of the hall near the back of the house. Ryan and I both commented on feeling something peculiar in the corner near the window. My son described it as a “creepy feeling” whereas I was feeling something very quiet and still. It was as if there was a stillness to the energy in the room; that it rested in just one place and was very quiet and motionless. I later learned that a close relative of Mr. Forrester died tragically in this room. Although I’m not at liberty to go into the details of this tragic death, the stillness I felt in this room seems in alignment with the way the person had died.
     We left this room and went down the hallway to a room near the rear of the house. Here I got a very strong sense that a lot of people met in this room, but this made no sense to me since the room is currently a nursery. Marissa later told me that the floorplan of the house had changed since the early 1900s, and that the room had originally been a sitting room where Mr. Forrester used to entertain his guests; so I was correct when I felt the energy of large numbers of people in the room.
The Forrester bedroom was across the hall from this room, and I entered with slight trepidation. After all, this was the room where the girl had woken up to find herself tucked into bed by unseen hands. It was also the room where Marissa and Jack were unable to sleep, and where footsteps were heard coming down the hall. So, I was more than a little disappointed when I didn’t feel very much in the room. There was some residual energy running along one wall, but other than that the room felt clean.
     Although there are some striking paranormal incidents associated with the Forrester bedroom, it helps to know a little about how spirits operate. First of all, they aren’t imprisoned in a room. They can move about freely. Just because I walk into a room hoping to make contact with a particular spirit; it doesn’t mean that they are always on hand. Second, spirits are ‘attracted to’ certain people. For example, if a spirit is that of a mother who had lost a child in life, then she might only make herself known to mothers, or to children. Third, there is often more than just one spirit in a home. As I theorized earlier, the incident with the bedcovers being tucked in around the girl could have been a soldier, a nurse, or Mr. Forrester himself. Or, it could have been someone totally different, like a former maid or Mr. Forrester close relative who died in the room down the hall. As for the footsteps heard coming from the Forrester bedroom--well, they could have been the ghostly footsteps of just about anyone.
     It was getting late, and Marrisa and her family had plans for the evening so Ryan and I wrapped up the investigation. I reiterated how thrilled Ryan and I were to have had the opportunity to run the investigation, and Marissa invited us to come back some day to explore one other house on the property. It’s a house that comes with a number of intriguing tales that involved Mr. Forrester directly--but that’s a ghost story for another day.
     As I drove down the long, dark, winding driveway I’m sure it comes as no surprise that I paid particular attention to the sound of the gravel crunching under my car’s tires. And you can be sure that as the beams of my headlights illuminated the stone gates in the distance, I was hoping against hope to catch even the most fleeting glimpse of an old woman in a long, old fashioned dress walking a large brown dog.

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The Pendulum: A Powerful Tool for Uncovering Hidden Knowledge

5/28/2019

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In April of 1935, a French businessman was staying in the city of Valence on a trip. His family knew that he would be away for a while, but after a few days of not hearing from him they became concerned. They contacted the police who paid a visit to the hotel he had been staying at. His belongings were still in the hotel room, but the man was nowhere to be found.
Weeks had gone by with no trace of the man, and by now it was obvious that something terrible had happened to him. Since the police were unable to find him, the family called on someone they hoped would be able to help--Catholic priest, Abbe Mermet. They didn’t call on Father Mermet for spiritual help, and he wasn’t an amateur sleuth. Father Mermet was a dowser, and he was known to have helped locate several missing persons by using nothing more than a pendulum and a map.
    Father Mermet asked the family for a photo of the man, and he obtained a map of Valence. Holding his pendulum over the photo and the map, he was able to deduce what had happened. Mermet told the family that the man had fallen into the river Rhone and drowned. In the time since his death, the river had carried the man’s body nearly 80 miles to village of Aramon. He said that the body was was lodged between two rocks, and he told them the exact location of where they would find it. The family went to the location Father Mermet had indicated and they found the man’s body lodged between two rocks in the river, exactly where he said it would be.
    In another case, Mermet was called upon to help locate a missing twenty-six year old who had disappeared from his home. Using a pendulum, an article of the man’s clothing, and a map, Father Mermet deduced that the man had suffered a nervous breakdown and was still alive somewhere in Toulouse, France. Twelve days later, Mermet received a letter from the man’s mother saying that her son had been located. He had indeed suffered a nervous breakdown, and was found staying with friends in Toulouse. The man was brought home safely and received treatment for his mental illness.
     Look up the word ‘dowsing’ in the dictionary and you'll find it defined as “a technique for searching for underground water, minerals, or anything invisible, by observing the motion of a pointer--traditionally a forked stick, now often paired bent wires--or the changes in direction of a pendulum, supposedly in response to unseen influences.” But as we’ve seen, dowsing is much more than just looking for water or precious metals.
    Google the word ‘dowsing’ and you’ll get approximately 4,020,000 results. Take a look at the video results from the same search and you’ll find 141,000 videos on the subject. People dowse for water, minerals, gold, uranium, underground power lines and pipes, lost graves, and buried treasure. Pendulums are used to dowse maps to locate missing people and objects.
The military has also used dowsing. During the Vietnam War, soldiers dowsed to locate hidden land mines. During the second World War the Germans used dowsers to follow the movement of British ships.
People use dowsing for healing, to improve psychological health, and to test water and food for contaminates. And the list of uses for dowsing goes on and on.
    Whether you call it water-witching, divining, or even doodlebugging, one thing is for certain--dowsing is serious business. There are dowsing societies all over the world. The Appalachian Chapter of the American Society for Dowsers lists sixty-two international dowsing associations. There are organizations in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, the Czech Republic, Chile, Cuba, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Spain, France, India, Indonesia, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Switzerland, Finland, the United States, the UK, Venezuela, Russia, Japan, and Korea--to name a few.
    There’s a saying, “5,000,000 Elvis fans can’t be wrong”. The same goes for dowsing. Let’s face it, people don’t waste time on things that don’t work. There are such a huge number of dowsers across the globe who devote time and money to the practice that there must really be something to this thing called dowsing. But how does dowsing work? Dowser Fay Semple (Facebook|Twitter|Instagram|YouTube) explains it this way:

“Dowsing is an alignment of body, mind, and soul. Our conscious mind is asking a carefully framed question; but the information we’re trying to gather from information fields that permeate everything and that sit behind physical reality, is something that our subconscious and subliminal mind is much easier able to access. But the subconscious and subliminal mind do not speak in language; they speak in archetype, image, feelings, dreams, and sensations. So, dowsing is a method of getting those two very different types of your mind to speak together. You ask a question, but your subliminal mind can’t answer in English. So what you’re doing through the body is asking for a graphical representation -- a Yes or No movement of the answer to the question.” She goes on to say, “When we think and put a question out there, a responding field comes back with information. Dowsing is a way of tapping into those fields.”
[By the way, I've had a sneak peak at Fay Semple's fantastic new website, so keep an eye on her social media for the official launch. I'll post the link in the 'Resources' section of this article once the site is up and running.]

Dowsing as we think of it today seems to have originated in 15th century Germany when it was used to locate underground sources of metal. When German miners traveled to England to work in the country’s coal mines, the practice quickly spread throughout Europe. Dowsing was accepted by just about everyone until the church got involved. In 1659, the Jesuits declared dowsing to be a satanic practice. Not to worry. Dowsing lived on long after it was banned by the church.
    In the 18th and 19th centuries water dowsers, also known as water-witches, were well-respected and important members of the community. They were relied on to find fresh sources of water on property, and no one would consider digging a well without consulting a dowser first. Why? You can’t just dig a well anywhere and hit water. Without a dowser, a homeowner might spend time and money digging hole after hole until they hit water. Dowers are often able to locate water the very first time.
    One man told a story from modern times that illustrates this perfectly. He said, “I remember as a small child in Shutesbury, Massachusetts watching this old man wandering the field next to our little house with a stick in his hand. My dad explained he was a dowser, there to find water. The well drilling company had struck three “dry holes” and so they’d called in a dowser. He found the place to drill in ten minutes.” 1
    As I mentioned earlier, dowsing isn’t just for finding sources of water. Many people use dowsing to help find lost objects. The American Society of Dowsers shares a number of such stories on their website.
    One story tells of a woman who asked dowser Louis Matacia for help in finding her lost wallet. Through dowsing, Mr. Matacia narrowed down the location of the wallet to a restaurant the woman had eaten at the previous night. He said that the wallet had fallen down into the booth the woman had been sitting at. She returned to the restaurant and after struggling to move the booth found the wallet deep in the corner where Matacia said it was.
    In another story, a man contacted dowser Marge Hefty to help locate a valuable object he had lost. Ms. Hefty dowsed the location while talking to the man over the phone. She first narrowed the location of the object down to his house, then to his bedroom, and finally two feet off the floor under a very large pile of books. The man searched the spot and found the item exactly where Ms. Hefty said it would be.
    George and Tonie Weller helped Elizabeth Robins locate the deed to two pieces of property that her mother had left to her after she died. Although the woman had searched both properties for the legal document, it was nowhere to be found. After 10 minutes of dowsing, Tonie’s dowsing rods lead her to the upstairs closet of one of the houses. There she found the deed in a shoebox full of old Christmas cards.

Tools of the Trade
    Although this newsletter deals primarily with pendulum dowsing, let’s take a look at the four most popular devices use by dowsers: Y-Rods, L-Rods, a ‘Bobber’, and a pendulum. Each device has its own ‘personality’, so to speak, and each has advantages and disadvantages.
    Y-rods are the traditional type of dowsing rod that is often depicted in movies. It's a forked stick shaped like the letter Y and it's anywhere from 12 to 24 inches long. In the ‘old days’ Y-Rods were made out of wood, but people now favor plastic or metal rods because they are easier to hold. Y-rods are primarily used to indicate a YES response to a question. For example, if you were dowsing for water the Y-Rod would point down to show where the water is.
    L-rods are a very popular dowsing device. They are simply two L-shaped rods, and you hold one in each hand with the long end facing away from you. Some people make these out of bent wire coat hangers. Or, you can buy them pre-made. Mine are made out of copper and have handles that allow the rods to move freely. To use them, you think of the thing you are trying to locate and begin walking with the rods pointed slightly downward. When the rods both point in the same direction, it is an indication to walk that way. When the rods spread in opposite directions, it indicates a NO response. When you reach the desired target, the two rods will cross in front of you.
    Bobbers are long flexible rods, branches or wires that sometimes have a coiled spring near the end that you hold. They may also have a weight on the far end. As you can imagine, the spring and the sheer length of the rod makes it bob up and down or from side to side when you walk--thus the name ‘bobbers’. The direction of the bobbing indicates either a YES or a NO answer.
The pendulum is my personal favorite type of dowsing device, and it is favored by many dowsers. It’s portable, easy to use, and I find that I get instant and accurate responses to my questions. A pendulum is basically any weighted object that hangs on the end of a string or a metal chain. The length of the string is typically four or five inches long. The pendulum indicates Yes or No depending upon the way it swings. One downside of using a pendulum is that it can be difficult to control when walking. But a big plus is the ability to use it when dowsing maps and pendulum charts. Map dowsing involves using a pendulum over a map. As you can imagine, there are any number of things that you can dowse on a map such as the location of missing objects, precious minerals, missing persons, just about anything.

My Experiences With Dowsing
    The pendulum is a valuable tool when trying to get to the bottom of who--or what--is responsible for a haunting. I recently used a pendulum at an investigation in New Millford, Connecticut. It helped determine that there were two spirits present. One was a girl in her early 20s, and the other was a non-human entity that came in as an attachment to an object the homeowner had purchased. Using this information I was able to do a clearing that the homeowner said was successful.
    I also used a pendulum in a case in Stamford, Connecticut where I was able to learn the name of the spirit that was haunting a house. The spirit was a soldier. After doing some research I discovered that there was a soldier with that name who had passed away in the 1940s.
    In preparing for this article, I did an experiment that turned out to be a lot of fun. I put six coffee cups face-down on my dining room table and asked my daughter to place a coin under one of the cups. Each time she hid the coin under a cup, she also moved the cups around the table.
    When using a pendulum, you have to know what YES looks like, and what NO looks like. For me, the pendulum swings in a horizontal line to indicate YES, and in a counterclockwise circle to indicate NO.
    The first time my daughter hid the coin, the pendulum indicated a definite NO as I suspended it over five of the cups, but it swung wildly in a horizontal line over the sixth cup. I turned the cup over, and there was the coin!
    I repeated the experiment a second time with the same result; the pendulum swung in wide circles over five of the cups which indicated NO, and it showed a strong YES over the one cup where my daughter had hidden the coin.
    On the third trial I was incorrect the first time; but I was able to locate the coin on the first try after re-dowsing the remaining five cups
    On the fourth trial I was correct, and I located the coin on the first try.
    On the fifth trial I was incorrect, and I was unable to find the coin by re-dowsing the remaining cups.
    Obviously, I would have to repeat this experiment hundreds of times to declare that my dowsing experiment was statistically impressive. But I was satisfied with the results. Remember, I didn’t use two cups which would give me a 50/50 chance of success each time--I used six cups. During the experiment, the YES and NO movements of the pendulum were well defined and when the pendulum indicated that the coin was under a particular cup, I had an internal feeling of certainty that I was correct before uncovering the coin.
    I did another experiment where I asked my daughter to hide a coin in the front yard. Using a pendulum, I was able to pinpoint the exact location of the coin. It was funny because I was standing right on the coin and my pendulum was swinging back-and-forth so hard that it was practically jumping out of my hand--but I couldn’t find the coin! It turns out that I was standing right on it. Even though I was barefoot, I couldn’t feel that I was actually stepping on the coin because my daughter had buried it slightly. It was as if the pendulum was saying, “It’s right under your foot you fool!”

Try It Yourself!
    Since most people don’t own a pendulum, you’ll want to start by making one yourself. Find a round, spherical or cylindrical shaped object that has some weight to it. I recently made a pendulum out of a Chinese coin. It was perfect because of its shape, and because it already had a hole in it.
    Next, suspend the object from a string, thread, or a chain that is around four or five inches long. You can also start with a longer string that you can hold at different lengths until you find the right length for you.
    The next step is to find out what a YES response looks like, and what a NO response looks like. Hold the pendulum in front of you and make sure that it is still. Say out loud, “Show me what YES looks like” and watch the pendulum carefully. It will either swing from side-to-side, back-and-forth, in a clockwise circle, or in a counter-clockwise circle. Next, say out loud, “Show me what NO looks like” and note the direction the pendulum moves. Many people see the pendulum start moving right away, others wait a long time and see just a little movement. That’s OK. Just keep at it. It sometimes helps to stare at the weight of the pendulum and imagine it moving.
    It’s important to keep in mind that when you ask a question, you are using the pendulum as a tool to get an answer from the universe or from your subconscious mind--The pendulum is not an intelligent being. The answers are coming through you, and the pendulum is the visual representation of those answers.
It’s possible that the answer is unknown, or that it’s not a good time for you to receive the answer. So you’ll also need to ask what “I don’t know” looks like, and what “I don’t want to answer” looks like.
    Now that you know what the answers look like, practice by asking questions you know the answer to such as “Am I a male?”; “Do I drive a red car?”; “Am I the oldest child in my family?” etc. You can ask the question out loud, or you can ask them silently--it makes no difference.

Asking Permission
    Many dowsers feel that it's important to ask permission before dowsing. Asking permission comes in the form of three questions: ‘Can I?’, ‘May I?’ and ‘Should I?’.
    By asking ‘Can I?’, a dowser is essentially asking if they have the ability to do a certain type of dowsing. Suppose you are looking for a lost object in your home. If you ask ‘Can I do this type of dowsing?’ and the answer is NO, it’s best not to proceed. You don’t have enough experience to do this type of dowsing. This is valuable information because it’s telling you to practice before taking on dowsing for missing objects.
    ‘May I?’ is asking permission of God--the universe, collective consciousness or whatever you want to call it--to do the type of dowsing you are about to do. If you get a YES answer, great! If you get a NO answer, it might mean that you are seeking information that you shouldn’t have right now because you are not ready for it yet.
    ‘Should I?’ is a question that you ask to find out if it’s a good idea to get involved in a particular dowsing job. Some dowsers are taken advantage of, so asking ‘Should I?’ is a way to protect yourself before taking on a dowsing job for someone else. Or, if you are dowsing for yourself, it may mean that the thing you are seeking might do you or someone else harm in some way down-the-road. If you get a NO answer, don’t question it; just stop the dowsing session and move on to something else.

Experiment, Experiment, Experiment!
    Now for the fun part. Use your creativity in devising experiments to hone your skills. I first recommend that you try the 6 cup coin experiment I talked about earlier. There are also experiments you can do with playing cards. First, remove the ‘royal cards’ and the Aces. Keeping the cards face down choose one at random and place it on a table. Suspend your pendulum over the card and ask, “Is this a red card?” or “Is this a black card?”. See how many you get correct out of ten tries.
    Next, try another card experiment with numbers. Choose a card at random, hold your pendulum over the card and ask, “Is this card between 2 and 8?” If you get a YES response, try narrowing it down. “Is this card between 2 and 5?” Keep asking questions until you get a YES answer for a single number, then turn over the card and check your accuracy.
    Here’s a great exercise. Find five or six small objects and put them in a row in front of you. Now, write the names of each object on a slip of paper and put the slips into individual envelopes. Mix the envelopes thoroughly, then select one. Hold the envelope in one hand and suspend your pendulum over each object at a time asking “Is this the object that is written on the paper in the envelope?” When the pendulum indicates a positive response, open the envelope to check your accuracy. This experiment can be taken a step further by placing each envelope with a positive response in front of the object the pendulum indicated. Don’t open the envelopes until you’ve tested all of the objects, then open and check for accuracy.
    Experimenting with a pendulum alone is fun, but with a partner it’s even better. It’s important to choose someone who is not skeptical or disinterested. The following partner experiments come from Richard Webster’s excellent book Pendulum Magic For Beginners: Tap Into Your Inner Wisdom. If you are at all interested in dowsing, definitely pick up a copy.
    Happy or Sad -- Have your partner close their eyes and think of either a happy or sad scene while you hold your pendulum over their upturned palm. Ask “Is (your partner) thinking of a happy scene?” If it indicates YES, you know it’s a happy scene. If it indicates NO, it’s a sad scene.
    Which Object Is It? -- Select several objects and place them in a line several inches apart. Turn your back and have your partner pick one up for a few seconds, then replace it. Now, suspend your pendulum over each object and ask, “Is this the object that my partner just picked up and held?”
    I Spy -- Have your partner choose any object that they can see in the room that you are both in. They don’t have to hold the object, they just have to look at it. Obviously, don’t watch them as they’re looking around. Now hold your pendulum in front of you and start asking it about each object in the room. You can also narrow down the search by asking questions such as “Is the object on the side of the room with the fireplace?” “Is the object within 5 feet of me?” etc.
    Hide and Seek -- Have your partner hide an object somewhere in the house or apartment you are in. Write the names of all of the rooms in the house on different cards, then test each card to see if the pendulum reacts positively to one of them.

Uses for Pendulum Dowsing
    The uses for pendulum dowsing are practically endless. You can use a pendulum to test the quality of food and water; to check which vitamins or supplements to take for various health conditions; to help locate lost objects, people, or pets; or to check for imbalances in your body’s energy centers known as ‘chakras’. Pendulums can be used to determine the health of a person at a distance, or even to heal at a distance. They can also be used to explore past lives, and to communicate with spirits.
    There are books that have pendulum charts that can be used to ask questions on just about every topic you can imagine. There are also pendulum alphabet charts that you can use in a way that's similar to an Ouija board. The disclaimer here is that I always warn people against using Ouija boards, but I don’t consider dowsing alphabet charts to be in the same category. Answers given while dowsing come from the universe or from your subconscious. Rogue spirits are not controlling the pendulum, so there is no danger of spirit infestation or possession when using a pendulum.
    I hope you enjoyed learning about the various uses of pendulums for dowsing, and that you'll try pendulum dowsing for yourself. If you do, I know you'll be amazed at the results. There are tons of books, websites, organizations, Meet-up groups, and videos where you can learn more about dowsing. Start by checking out some of the resources at the end of this article. Happy dowsing!

Resources
I've had a sneak peak at Fay Semple's amazing new website, so keep an eye on social media for the official launch.
https://borderlandsciences.org/journal/vol/28/n03/Crabb_Mermet_Radiesthesia_Catholic_Gold.html (Article about Father Mermet)
https://theghostinmymachine.com/2019/02/11/how-does-it-work-dowsing-water-witching-and-the-power-of-expectation-divination-ideomotor-effect/ (Article about the history of dowsing and practical application)
https://canadiandowsers.org/military-government-and-big-business-use-dowsing/ (Short article on government and military usage of dowsing)
https://dowsers.org/ (The American Society of Dowsers website)
https://charliesheldon2.com/2016/12/13/dowsing-stories-that-are-true/ (Dowsing stories)
https://dowsers.org/confirmed-dowsing-stories/ (Dowsing stories)
http://dowsers.org//wp-content/uploads/2016/05/4_3_2_1_Handout.pdf (A concise dowsers handbook from the American Society of Dowsers)
https://dowsers.org/dowsing-to-get-rid-of-bad-habits/ (Advice for using to break bad habits)
https://www.surpliceofspirit.com/pendulums-answers/ (A general article on pendulums and how to use them)
https://www.annasayce.com/trouble-pendulum-dowsing/ (Advice for those having trouble getting started with dowsing)
http://www.archercousins.com/dowser.htm (An article by a man who used dowsing to locate lost gravesites)
http://www.featherhawk.com/articles/pendulum_dowsing_the_basics.htm (A well written and practical article about how to dowse)
http://wncdowsers.org/about-us/who-we-are/ (Appalachian Dowsers website) (History of dowsing from 8000 BC until the present)
https://ancientstandard.com/2007/06/19/a-brief-history-of-dowsing-8000-bc-%E2%80%93-today/ (History of dowsing from 8000 BC until the present)
http://www.wrf.org/men-women-medicine/dowsing-radiesthesia-health.php (Dowsing for health and healing)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaJGBc5mCuU (Asking good dowsing questions) (Great video about asking the right questions while dowsing)

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Seeing the Dead: Magic Mirrors, Scrying, and the Psychomanteum

4/30/2019

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     A woman walks into a dark room and sits in a comfortable chair. All around her, the walls are obscured by a black curtain, and in front of her is a mirror set at an angle so she only sees darkness reflected in its surface. The only light comes from a single candle on a table behind her. As she sits quietly and gazes into the mirror, a fog begins to cover its surface. Soon, bright flashes of light are seen dancing around the perimeter of the mirror. Then, suddenly, a figure appears in the mirror. The figure looks totally real; so much so that the woman feels as if she can reach out and touch it. The figure is that of the woman’s mother who died several years earlier, and she looks young and alive. As the woman looks in amazement the figure of her mother steps out of the mirror and into the room with her. The two embrace and talk, and the woman’s mother tells her that she is fine and that it is beautiful where she is. The vision ends as quickly as it had begun and the woman is left with a sense of peace, happiness, and closure. This is the psychomanteum.
       In the 1937 animated Disney classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the evil Queen gazes into her enchanted mirror and says, “Magic mirror on the wall--who is the fairest one of all?” You know that line, right? I’m sure you do. Everyone does. But the queen says something else in the film that not many people remember. She says, “Slave in the magic mirror, come from the farthest space. Through wind and darkness I summon thee! Speak! Let me see thy face!” Let me see thy face. The queen is not simply asking the mirror to answer questions here; she is looking for a vision, and she’s looking for it to come from within the mirror itself.
    Disney didn’t come up with the idea for a magic mirror on his own. The use of mirrors as divination tools has been around for centuries. Scrying is a technique whereby the seer gazes into a mirror, a pool of water, or a crystal ball until images appear.
    But the real magic of scrying as it relates to seeing dead loved ones lies in something called a psychomanteum. The word comes from the Greek, and translates roughly as “theater of the mind”. A psychomanteum is a darkened room designed to induce apparitions through gazing into a mirror.
    A reflective surface seems to be key to having this type of visual experience. In his book, Reunions: Visionary Encounters with Departed Loved Ones, Dr. Raymond Moody tells the story of a woman who saw her deceased husband in the surface of a hotel picture window.
It was nighttime, so the glass only reflected the dim light from inside of the room. The woman was looking at this surface with nothing particular on her mind when she suddenly saw a man running toward her. He was wearing a bathing suit, and his hair was wet as if he had just run up from the beach. The woman instantly recognized the man as her husband who had recently died in a car accident. He ran right up to her and smiled. She said that she could even smell him, and that the vision was so real that she could have felt his wet hair if she had reached out. The man was smiling as he said to her, “Everything is fine here”.
    This story illustrates the emotional impact that a visual reunion with a loved one can have on a person and how such an experience can help them deal with grief. But keep in mind that the woman wasn't looking to make contact with her deceased husband -- he just showed up. How would you go about actively seeking out a visionary encounter with a deceased loved one? You would use a psychomanteum.
Dr. Moody describes the psychomanteum he made in his home this way: “A room was set aside for use as an apparition chamber. At one end of the room a mirror four feet tall and three and a half feet wide was mounted on the wall. The bottom edge of the mirror was three feet above the floor. A comfortable ‘easy chair’ was prepared by removing its legs so that the top of the headrest was about three feet above the floor. The chair was placed about three feet from the mirror and inclined slightly backward. This was done for comfort, but also to keep the reflection of the gazer from being seen in the mirror. In effect, the angle of the chair created a clear depth view of the mirror, which would reflect only darkness behind the person who was gazing. The result was a crystal-clear pool of darkness.
    This pool of darkness was assured by the black velvet curtain draped all around the chair from the ceiling. A curved curtain rod was used to allow the drape to surround the area around the chair and mirror, creating a curtained booth or chamber. Inside this apparition chamber and directly behind the chair was placed a small stained-glass lamp with a fifteen-watt bulb. When the lights in the room were turned off and the outside light excluded by blinds and thick window curtains, this tiny light provided the room’s only illumination.” (Moody, Perry, 1992, p.82)
    Prior to using a psychomanteum, subjects are asked to look at photographs of the deceased person they wish to communicate with, and to try to recall vivid memories of the time they spent together. They also are encouraged to bring mementos into the room with them such as a piece of clothing or jewelry owned by the person. One man even brought his father’s fishing poles into the booth!
    The experiences people have in the psychomanteum vary, but most are extremely vivid. It’s not just that you see a fuzzy image in the mirror. People report seeing full bodied apparitions that look as real as any living person. Some even seem to walk out of the mirror and into the room.
    It’s interesting that many people encounter deceased persons other than the one they were prepared to see. One such example in Moody’s book comes from a businessman named James who described himself as an ‘interested skeptic’. He was using the psychomanteum to attempt a visionary reunion with his father who died when James was twelve years old. After preparing for the reunion by looking through family photos and pictures of furniture that his father had made, James entered the apparition booth.
    After being in the booth for a long time a man’s image began to form in the mirror and suddenly, the man stepped right out of the mirror and into the apparition room. But it wasn’t James’ father, it was his old business partner who had died of a heart attack a few years earlier. Interestingly, the two had been business partners, but they were not very close friends.
The man who stepped out of the mirror looked totally real, and he told James that he was fine where he was. He also gave a message about his daughter who once blamed James for her father’s death. This was all done telepathically, so he did not hear a voice in the booth. When the experience was over, the vision vanished quickly.
Afterward, James said that he felt that he had made peace with his business partner. He insisted that the man he saw in the booth was not an apparition or an hallucination; he said that it was actually his business partner in the room with him.
    Not all psychomanteum experiences are purely visual. In her book A Glimpse of Heaven: The Remarkable World of Spiritually Transformative Experiences (1) Carla Wills-Brandon writes of an amazing experience she had while using Dr. Moody’s psychomanteum. After just a few minutes of sitting in the apparition booth, she saw bluish-grey cloudy shapes begin to pour out of the mirror, then a bluish-white light began to sprinkle down upon her. This light turned into balls of light which began to grow in size. One of these blue-white orbs hit her on her left side near her heart and took her breath away. At the same time, it filled her with a peaceful, joyous, and loving feeling. Ms. Wills-Brandon said, “Then I saw more light around me and I was inundated with unlimited unconditional love. Very thin etheric streams of whirling white energy came toward my left side, touching my left arm, as if in an embrace. From this soft, cool touch, I felt pure amazement and joy. I will never know what would have happened next because one of Moody’s more aggressive visitors suddenly burst in and told me he wanted to try this psychomanteum. With this intrusion, the swirling, loving light immediately disappeared. For a moment, I just sat there stunned.” (Seeing is Believing! My Personal Experience With the Spirit World)
    One man who enter the psychomanteum had a purely auditory experience. He said, “After what I guess was no more than five minutes I began to hear the voice of this friend of mine who was killed in a boating accident. It was just like her speaking to me. I’m not talking here about thoughts or day dreams or imagination. I’ve never heard anything like it. She just talked to me and said it was wonderful where she was. I could hear each word plainly and separately. There was a quality to it, like an echo, I believe, like maybe she was speaking through a tin tube. It was her voice, though, definitely.” (Moody, Perry, 1992, p.144)
    Visual encounters in the psychomanteum are usually highly emotional experiences. Moody reported that one woman not only saw her deceased grandfather in the psychomanteum, she also spoke to him and felt his touch. She said, “I was so happy to see him that I began to cry. Through the tears I could still see him in the mirror. Then he seemed to get closer and he must have come out of the mirror because the next thing I knew he was holding me and hugging me. It felt like he said something like, 'It’s okay, don’t cry.'” (Moody, Perry, 1992, p.93)
    As we’ve seen, these visual encounters are often so real that people feel as if they can reach out and touch the apparitions, but they are not always able to. One man who used the psychomanteum in an attempt to contact his sister described the experience in this way:
    “I was sitting in there, and all of a sudden it seemed that these three people stepped right into the room all around me. It looked as if they stepped out of the mirror, but I felt that such a thing couldn’t be, so I was shocked. I didn’t know what was going on. For a moment I thought it was someone trying to play a joke on me, so I reached up quickly, trying to touch them, and when I did, my hand hit the curtain. I still saw them. I got a look at all three. My sister, Jill, was there, but two others also, my friend Todd and my grandfather. All of them looked very much alive, just looking at me.” (Moody, Perry, 1992, p.135)
    Another woman was reunited with her deceased grandmother, her aunt, and her great-grandmother in the psychomanteum. She said, “I was so overjoyed during this whole meeting. I was so happy. There was not a doubt in the world they were there and that I saw them, and it was as real as meeting anyone.” (Moody, Perry, 1992, p.123)
    Not all experiences with the psychomanteum happen right away. Dr. Moody calls these delayed experiences ‘Take-Out Visions’. One example of this type of experience comes from a woman who used the psychomanteum to make contact with her deceased husband.
    While in the booth, the woman saw images of people in the mirror, but they quickly disappeared when she tried to focus on them. After leaving the booth, she went home and had the distinct feeling that someone was with her. A night later, she had a strong sense that her father was in the room with her. The following evening she woke up in the middle of the night and also felt her father’s presence, and she could smell his aftershave lotion. She said, “I looked up, and my father was standing at the door of my bedroom. I had been lying on the bed but I stood up and walked over to him. I was within four steps of him. He looked just like my dad, but not sickly like he had been just before he died. He was a full figure, but he looked more fleshed out than when he died. He looked whole, like everything was wonderful.” Her father told her that he didn’t want her to worry, that he was fine. (Moody, Perry, 1992, p.138)
    Not all visions experienced in the booth are realistic. Some who use the psychomanteum have symbolic visions. These typically occur when a person goes into the booth without the goal of contacting a loved one. In these cases, it is as if the psychomanteum acts as a gateway to the subconscious. One woman reported seeing snakes in the mirror. Some of the snakes were rising up and hissing at her, but others were smiling and friendly looking. But no matter what type of snake showed itself to her in the mirror, she always felt fearful and she wanted to run away. Afterward, she said that she realized that the snakes represent trust because she has always been afraid that people will appear one way, then turn against her.
    Another woman went into the booth just to see what would happen, and she saw a huge peacock with brilliantly colored feathers. The peacock seemed to have a human face. Then she noticed that behind the peacock was what looked to be a sacrificial altar with a person laying on it who appeared to be dead. Suddenly, the woman found herself dancing with Jesus at the last supper! The two danced around the table until a woman lead her away. Since many of the symbols the woman saw had to do with religion and spirituality, Dr. Moody felt that they represented the role that religion unconsciously played in her life.
    Are the visual encounters experienced in the psychomanteum proof of life after death, or are they simply projections from our subconscious. As we’ve seen, the people who used the booth claim that the people they saw in the mirror looked as real as any person. They were convinced that they had actually made contact with their deceased loved ones. Dr. Moody himself said, “After conducting a number of mirror-gazing sessions in which apparitions were facilitated, I decided to try to have one myself. The result was a personal encounter that has totally changed my perspective on life.” (Moody, Perry, 1992, p.22)
For Moody's experiment in the psychomanteum, he chose to focus on his maternal grandmother, but instead he made contact with his paternal grandmother. He said that, “In no way did she appear “ghostly” or transparent during our reunion. She seemed completely solid in every respect. She appeared no different from any other person …”
Moody said, that the experience left him “with an abiding certainty that what we call death is not the end of life.” (Moody, Perry, 1992, p.27-28)
    It may not be a simple question of whether or not people were actually reunited with their loved ones in the psychomanteum. Perhaps mirror gazing puts us in a state of consciousness where we are able to be in two worlds at once; a place where where there is no barrier between the world of the living and the world of the dead.

Resources
https://www.near-death.com/psychology/experiences/psychomanteum.html
https://exemplore.com/paranormal/Spirit-Reflections-Ghosts-and-Haunted-Mirrors
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychomanteum
http://www.everythingunderthemoon.net/spells/mirror-gazing-contact-spirit.htm
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0804112355/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=eutm-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399369&creativeASIN=0804112355
https://lonerwolf.com/scrying/
https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/psychomanteum-mirror-gazing

https://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/column.php?id=257269

http://www.mirrorhistory.com
http://publicparapsychology.blogspot.com/2009/11/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostradamus
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclopædia_Britannica/Crystal-gazing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necromanteion_of_Acheron

https://bigseance.com/tag/psychomanteum/
http://whitecrowbooks.com/carlawillsbrandon/entry/seeing_is_believing_my_personal_experience_with_the_spirit_world/

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