How are you being haunted?

 

Let us count the ways...

Residual

Residual hauntings refer to the phenomenon where a ghostly apparition or other supernatural event repeats the same actions, events, or sounds over and over, as if it were a recording playing on loop.  Residual hauntings are believed to be imprints of past events, often linked to traumatic or significant occurrences.

The thing about residual hauntings:

•   Repetitive nature
  

Residual hauntings often involve repeating the same actions or scenes, such as apparitions appearing in the same location, walking down the same hallway, or repeating a specific event.

• No interaction

The spirits involved in residual hauntings are generally unaware of their surroundings and do not interact with living people.

• Even imprints

Residual hauntings are thought to be imprints of past events, often traumatic or significant, that have left a lingering energy or "residue" at a particular location.

• The "stone tape" theory

The concept of residual hauntings is related to the "Stone Tape" theory, which suggests that buildings or objects can store records of past events, which can be later played back.

• Examples

This could include hearing the echoes of a party, seeing a spectral figure walking down a hallway, or hearing the sounds of an event that occurred at a specific location.

Interactive/intelligent

Intelligent hauntings refer to paranormal events where spirits or entities are believed to be aware of the living and able to interact with them in a conscious and interactive manner.  Intelligent hauntings are characterized by the entity's ability to react to the environment, communicate, and potentially interact with individuals.

The thing about intelligent hauntings:

• Awareness and Interaction

The entity is believed to be aware of the living and can react to their presence or actions.

• Communication

Entities may communicate through various means, such as moving objects, making sounds, or even appearing as apparitions.

• Unfinished Business

Intelligent hauntings may be linked to an entity that has unfinished business, such as a traumatic death, or a desire to interact with specific individuals.

• Intelligent Behavior

The entity may demonstrate behaviors that suggest intelligence, such as responding to questions, reacting to emotional states, or even exhibiting a degree of control over their environment.

• Potential for Harm

While some hauntings may be benevolent, others can be mischievous or even malicious, potentially causing harm or distress.

Crisis Apparitions

Crisis apparitions, also known as "deathbed apparitions," are visions or sensations experienced by a person that seem to coincide with a loved one's death or a significant life event.  These encounters can manifest as visual hallucinations, auditory experiences, or physical sensations like a touch or pain.

The thing about crisis apparitions:

• Definition

Crisis apparitions are described as a vision or sense of a loved one around the time of their death, often experienced by the bereaved.

• Nature of Experiences

These experiences can be visual (seeing the deceased), auditory (hearing voices), or involve physical sensations like a touch or pain that corresponds to a loved one's injury.

• Potential Explanations:

While some paranormal researchers suggest they might be a form of telepathy, others explore psychological and cultural factors, such as grief and family dynamics, that could influence their interpretation and reporting.

• Historical Significance

The concept of crisis apparitions has been explored by researchers like Edmund Gurney, Frank Podmore, and Frederic William Henry Myers in the 19th century, who found value in these experiences as potential evidence for paranormal phenomena.

• Examples

Stories often involve a dying person appearing to loved ones, sometimes communicating or bidding farewell, or a loved one's pain being felt by someone nearby.

• Verification

Crisis apparitions are often accompanied by notes about the time and details of the visitation, which can be later corroborated with the date and time of the death.

• Cultural and Religious Beliefs

Some cultures and religions interpret these experiences as evidence of the soul's existence beyond death, or as a way for the dead to communicate with the living.

 

Spontaneous Apparitions

Spontaneous apparitions refer to the unbidden appearance of a figure, often described as ghostly, that occurs without warning or prior indication. These experiences can involve various senses, but are most commonly visual, with the apparition appearing solid and realistic. While some may interpret these events as a manifestation of a deceased person's spirit, others view them through a religious or psychological lens.

The thing about spontaneous apparitions:

• Definition

An apparition is a visible non-physical phenomenon that resembles a human being, sometimes described as a ghost or spirit.

• Spontaneous Nature

These occurrences are unexpected and not predictable, happening in everyday settings and under low arousal conditions.

• Sensory Experiences

While primarily visual, apparitions may also involve auditory or olfactory sensations, such as smelling flowers or hearing voices.

• Interpretation

The meaning attributed to an apparition can vary greatly, depending on individual beliefs and cultural context.

• Psychological Factors

Apparitions have been linked to states of stress, grief, and altered states of consciousness, suggesting a potential psychological component.

• Religious Context

In some religious traditions apparitions are seen as divine manifestations or theophanies, with the Virgin Mary or other figures appearing to communicate messages.

• Haunted Locations

While some apparitions may occur in reputedly haunted locations, they are more likely to happen in familiar and mundane environments.

• Examples

Marian apparitions (appearances of the Virgin Mary), crisis apparitions (appearances of deceased individuals), and poltergeist phenomena (noisy spirits) are all examples of apparitions.

Thoughtforms

In Theosophy, a thoughtform is a tangible manifestation of thoughts, ideas, and emotions, often perceived as a form or shape. These thoughtforms are believed to be energetic structures that can be sensed, or even projected, by individuals. They are essentially a kind of energetic imprint of thoughts, feelings, and even music, according to theosophical sources.

The thing about thoughtforms:

• Manifestation of Thoughts

Thoughtforms are seen as physicalizations of our mental and emotional states, acting as energetic blueprints for reality.

• Energies and Aura

They are believed to emanate from the auras of individuals, potentially taking on the form of the person, objects, or even representing inherent qualities from the astral or mental planes, according to occultists like William Walker Atkinson..

• Clairvoyant Perception

In Theosophy, thoughtforms are primarily described as being perceivable by individuals with clairvoyant abilities.

• Influential Forces

Theosophists believe that the quality of our thoughts, and the thoughtforms they generate, can significantly impact our lives and the lives of those around us.

• Types of Thoughtforms

Annie Besant categorized thoughtforms into three classes: forms resembling the creator, forms representing objects or people, and forms representing astral or mental qualities.

• Examples:

Examples of thoughtforms include the energetic imprint of a room after a tense argument, or the lingering emotions after a concert.

Spirit Guides

In a haunting context, "spirit guides" might refer to entities, often perceived as spirits, that are causing or contributing to a haunting. These entities could be misunderstood or misrepresented guides, negative entities, or even lingering souls with unresolved issues.

The thing about spirit guides:

• Misunderstood or Misrepresented Guides

Some individuals believe in spirit guides as benevolent mentors and allies, but these guides could be misconstrued as negative entities if not properly identified, or if the individual has a poor understanding of their nature.

• Negative Entities

Some believe that negative entities, potentially including demons or beings with a bad attitude, can cause or contribute to hauntings by manipulating and scaring individuals.

• Lingering Souls with Unresolved Issues

It's also possible that spirits, or even ghosts, that are stuck between worlds due to unresolved issues or a lack of a proper afterlife transition, might be the source of a haunting.

• Differentiation from Angels and Ghosts

Distinguishing between angels, spirit guides, and ghosts can be challenging, but generally, angels are considered positive and helpful, while ghosts are more likely to be associated with lingering emotions or unresolved issues.

Poltergeist

A poltergeist haunting is a type of haunting characterized by disruptive physical phenomena, rather than the presence of a visible spirit. These disturbances, often involving moving objects, loud noises, and sometimes violent acts, are thought to be linked to a person or a location.

The thing about poltergeists:

• Physical Manifestations

Poltergeists are known for causing things to be moved around, knocking to be heard, objects to fly through the air, and even sounds, like growling . Some accounts mention more violent acts like pinching, biting, or tripping people.

• Focus on a Person or Location

Unlike traditional hauntings where a spirit is tied to a specific location, poltergeist activity can be linked to a person, even if they move to a new place.

• Emotional Connection

There's a belief that poltergeist activity is often linked to emotional turmoil, especially in adolescents or pregnant women, though it can also occur in seemingly stable individuals.

• Examples

The famous Enfield poltergeist, involving the Hodgson family in London, is a well-known case where the activity centered around the teenage girls. Other examples include cases where furniture moves, objects are thrown, or strange smells are detected.

SOURCES &
RECOMMENDED READING:

Theosophy
& the Theosophical Society
by Annie Besant

@ Amazon

Theosophy, an Introduction

by Rudolf Steiner

@ Amazon

Hauntings & Poltergeists

by James Houran & Rense Lange

@ Amazon

Thought Forms
by Annie Besant & CW Leadbeater

@ Amazon

The Ghost Studies

by Brandon Massullo

@ Amazon

From My Paranormal Journal ~ Cheryl

 

Taken from my Paranormal Journal... (March, 2004)

I was awoken abruptly out of a sound sleep—someone was crying, calling out to me. I thought it was one of my children and even called out, “I’m coming!”

I got up and checked the house—everyone was sound asleep.

The next morning I told my husband about it. He said, “Last night I thought I saw someone walk into the bedroom, and I thought it was you—until I realized my hand was on your hip!”

Also, yesterday, the lights in the living room turned themselves on three different times.

Note: The day before these odd occurrences, I had been released from the hospital from an overnight stay for a minor procedure. This is the same hospital that my husband’s girl friend had passed away in three years ago from colon cancer... Her name was Cheryl.

• The nurse I had the two days I was in the hospital was named... Cheryl.
• The nurse who prepped me for the procedure was named... Cheryl.
• The lady who came in to clean my room was... Cheryl’s aunt, her mother’s sister.

PODCAST Audio Blog ~ Creepy Paranormal & Supernatural Stories

 

These experiences are taken directly from my journal, and they occurred while living in our old house in Fremont, NE. My Favorite is Number 13 (of course it is) Time Stamp: 10:21. If you don't believe in synchronicity or creepy coincidence, you will after you hear this story. It still freaks me out.

Throwback Thursday! ~ The Good Old Days of Paranormal Investigation

The small cozy little house sitting on the edge of the woods looked peaceful and content, not revealing at all its history of tragic deaths, nor it’s ghostly visitors. At one hundred years old, this house has a long rich history of families and familial events and milestones. It has witnessed weddings, births, graduations, personal victories/achievements…and death.

The present owner has experienced the loss of two family members within the walls of this house. Her mother passed away from cancer in the downstairs bedroom in 2005, and it's in this room where a frosty presence makes itself felt by sitting on the bed, complete with the physical sensation of movement and visible indentation in the blankets. The owner’s husband passed away in the den, in 2008, after a long and lingering illness. Although his presence can be felt, quite strongly at times, there are no visual manifestations. And it’s from this room, through glass patio doors, that deer can be seen gathering at dusk near the rear of the property. It’s in the den where a photograph of the owner’s step-son sits, a young man killed in a tragic motorcycle accident, the parents having received that devastating middle-of-the-night call all parents dread.

Upon entering the house, we realized immediately that there was very strong EMF readings, beginning at the doorway between the living-room and kitchen, which was also very close to the bedroom door. Shadow figures are often seen by family members, crossing the living room and disappearing into the walls. We spent a great deal of time with the owners and the EMF detector exploring the bedroom and the doorway between the living-room and the kitchen, where the EMF detector was extremely active. We wanted to make sure that there were no electrical devices or outlets that would’ve been creating these readings. This involved moving furniture, locating all the electrical outlets, and letting the family take their time to tell their stories, voice their concerns, and formulate their questions.

When we were finally ready to ascend the stairs, the owner told us that her grandchildren refused to go upstairs. The way the EMF detector was working as we stood at the bottom of the steps, it was no wonder. There was an almost constant scream of protest from it. The EMF detector came on while we were at the bottom of the stairs and continued until we reached the doorway of the first upstairs bedroom. As investigators and home owners stood in a clump in one room, I moved around the upstairs with the EMF detector. I wished that we could just sit and spend some quiet time with cameras and instruments turned on. I think this would’ve been beneficial in catching spontaneous paranormal activity. However, the owners were enthusiastic and wanted to watch us work, continuing their chatter and speculation. For the rest of the time that we wandered the second floor of this house, the EMF activity was sporadic at best. As we worked our way from room to room, and as we descended the stairs, it fell silent. The atmosphere at the bottom of the stairs was noticeably lighter. Whatever had been hovering there before seemed to be gone.

The bathroom proved to be another area that drew high EMF readings, particularly in the shower; and we discovered that this presence was there one minute and gone the next, popping in and out in a dizzying fashion. We were also informed that objects in the bathroom moved around from place to place, inexplicably, creating an unnerving atmosphere. Instead of spending one long block of time in this area, we would pop in and out throughout our investigation. I have to say that the mirrored walls added an element of creepiness to this room, as you would catch fleeting movements in the mirror that you’d see out of the corner of your eye. Of course, by the time you turned your head to see what it was, it was gone.

Around the small entryway, suspended over an old-fashioned cellar door in the floor leading to the basement, was a string of clothing. The owner informed us that these clothes belonged to her deceased husband, and that she simply couldn’t bring herself to get rid of them. There was not only EMF activity here, but the strange sensation that someone was watching us as we touched the shirts, or moved a hangar. After a few minutes in this area, several people felt the hair on their arms or the back of their neck stand up, or experienced an uncomfortable sensation which manifested as a desire to exit this spot.

Epilogue…  As we worked our way through this house, not only did the EMF readings and paranormal sensations unfold before us, but the story of a family and its tragedies unfolded as well. This gave us an intimate look at characters and personalities who lived in this house at one time and who still walk its rooms and hallways, as well as the dynamics of the people still living here, and the long history of former occupants. The owners seemed relieved to share their stories, to watch instruments pick up visual proof of what they’ve known all along, and most importantly…to feel a connection with those they loved.

The Writer's Corner ~ The Tarot and An Exercise in Story Telling

 

As you may have seen from my last blog post, where I let myself fall completely under tarot's spell and write down uncensored the story the cards are laying open before me, the stories tarot can tell are intriguing and there is no timeline to them, they are in essence timeless, and you can find yourself transported to different places and eras in history.

I got to thinking, and I've thought about this before, wouldn't it be interesting to use the tarot to write stories, or to write a book.  And in essence, I have to wonder, who's story would it be?  I am of the belief that the information coming through the tarot cards are actually messages from Spirit, and can be messages from the deceased as well.  So, really, who's story would it be -- the writer's story, or Spirit's?  I would be most interested to hear opinions and theories.

I'm going to conduct an experimental writing exercise today, pulling three cards, and let's see what story they will tell us, where it will take us, what connections we'll make.  The most intriguing thing to me about using the cards in this manner, is that I most likely will not be writing this story on my own.

• 5/pentacles; Page/cups; 6/pentacles

The cards are once more transporting us back to an earlier time, it feels like a "tween-time", with so many changes, some that feel very modern and altering to the world we've always known... the 1920s, coming off the 19-teens.  Life is so changed after the war ended.  It seemed to release something wild and free and daring and sometimes slightly naughty.  It was as though conventionality had died in the trenches, lost in the battle fields of Europe, in the dirt and the mud and the blood.

But there's still tentacles of the old world, the old ways, trying in vain to hang onto propriety and tradition and morals. The reality of this comes in scathing glances of disfavor, critical words, whispered gossip, legalities of men, and it all leads to the more sensitive of us lingering around the edges, holding our secret revolutions in hushed tones, behind closed doors.

And this story begins, the story of a girl bound by her prim and proper life, her prim and proper beginning, her pristine and polished world, awash with a desire to find herself, to express herself, to break free from the constraints of expectations.  She conducts her daily life mostly in silence, except when propriety dictates otherwise.  Her thoughts, desires, dreams, fears, and deepest thoughts are contained within her slender frame and delicate countenance. 

But change is on the horizon, beckoning to her in the form of a delicate soul, a gentle spirit who was living much as she was, in the shadows, keeping quietly to their inner world of pure thought, filled with infinite unspoken possibilities.

What did it take to connect these kindred spirits?  A chance meeting?  The haphazard frivolous throw of the dice?  The deliberate and painstaking course of synchronicity?

In due course, the connection was made, tentatively and cautiously at first, until there was a recognition of the quiet souls, and they realized what was happening, felt the connection, and gradually grew bolder with this knowledge that they were no longer alone, no longer one, but now two.

The transition to a new life was gradual, the stepping stones sometimes small and quaking, the future pocked with the remnants of an old world and old rules.  But there were cracks within this earthly world, allowing brilliant rays of light, illumination, and realization to burst through in sporadic frenzy.  It would still be a long way for the world to travel to a place of true enlightenment.  But this couple was together, and  they would build upon the life they could achieve at this point in time, and they would continue quietly leaving their soul tracks over the course of eternity.

Conclusion:

Wow.  I can feel her, the heroine of this story, the story-teller of the cards.  It's very subtle, and she feels very prim, still bound in the habit of propriety and a genteel nature left over from the time in which she lived.  She's also a lesbian, and the gentle soul, the kindred spirit, that she connected with is a woman, which I found interesting, because I'm heterosexual, so it was a window of rare opportunity for me.  I was rather surprised that I really got nothing from this other character, her partner, though the energy felt similar to the heroine of this story, gentle and quiet.

There is so much more that I "see", "hear", "smell", "feel" that can't all be transposed into written words, or vocal narration, always with the cards, it's been this way.  And I can't begin to emphasize enough how much more I experience than what I'm able to convey to you.  When I finish a "reading" like this, I always feel as though I've actually been there, really been there.  It's weird, but very cool.

The following is a photo of today's cards:

This is my "scratchings" that I sometimes do right after I lay the cards, in order to make a connection, to see where the story begins, to meet the characters:

Walk-ins ~ a slightly creepy possibility that actually explains a lot of things

 

I don't remember exactly if I've ever heard of this phenomena before, but I might have, and I should at least recognize it, because it was the basis for one of my favorite TV shows:  Drop Dead Diva.  Anyway, since I have discovered, or re-discovered, this weird and slightly creepy sort of soul goings-on, I've been digging up and reading articles about it.  The following post is one of them.

You'll find the Source for this post
at the bottom of this article

There seems to be a general consensus amongst experts that when the spirit leaves the body, that’s the real time of death. There’s also general agreement that in total brain dead cases, the spirit or soul is usually out of the body, though often the brain dead person’s spirit stays with the body until life support is switched off. But that’s assuming the life support is switched off within a reasonable period of time. In the last column, I mentioned the case of Som Narang’s father, who was kept on life support for twelve days, even after the hospital where he had been rushed after a heart attack had declared him dead when all efforts to resuscitate him failed. 

Many of Narang’s relatives were convinced that the first hospital, a reputed one, which had declared him dead, couldn’t have been wrong, and his spirit had actually left  while only his body was kept “alive” on life support. One of the relatives made a seemingly peculiar comment: “We were lucky that in the twelve days his body was kept alive, some wandering spirit didn’t enter it. Recognizing that it was somebody else’s spirit and getting rid of it would have compounded our tragedy”.  

But is it possible for a wandering spirit to enter a dead body so that the body comes to life again? Yes, it is.

Often, such a phenomenon is termed a “walk-in”.  According to Wikipedia: A walk-in is a new-age concept of a person whose original soul has departed his or her body and has been replaced with a new, generally more advanced, soul… Believers maintain that it is possible for the original soul of a human to leave a person’s body and for another soul to “walk in”. Souls are said to “walk-in” during a period of  searing personal problems for the departing soul, or during or because of an accident or trauma. The “new” individual retains the memories of the original personality, but the personality and abilities change. Incarnating into a fully grown body allows a more advanced soul to carry out its mission without having to go through the two decades of maturation that humans need to reach adulthood.”

However, though described as “a new-age concept”,  numerous stories that I have heard over the years in remote areas unexposed to television or media of any kind have made it evident that its paranormal chronology is very old, and its occurrence fairly widespread and well understood too. Even in relatively recent times, it was way back in 1941 that a film, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, wove its plot around a spirit entering a newly dead corpse. This film in turn was based on a play, Heaven Can Wait, written in 1938.  The 1978 film remake, Heaven Can Wait, also portrayed one soul replacing a recently deceased man’s soul and reviving and inhabiting his body. This theme was featured in other notable movies; TV serials; novels; and stories: such as The Death of Superman, Stephen King’s The Dark Tower novels,  X-Files, Ghost Whisperer, and others.

There are several types of walk-ins, or soul exchanges. In her book, Walk-ins Among Us: Open Your Personal Portal to Cosmic Awareness, Yvonne Perry has written about them. Sometimes the walk-in soul enters into an agreement with the walk-out soul. “Rather than having a body die in order to release the soul from its incarnation, another soul steps in and picks up where the previous soul left off.  A walk-in can also be a companion soul in spirit form walking along with an embodied soul. A walk-in can be a fragmented aspect of a soul coming home and reuniting with the soul essence in a body… Some walk-ins are a blend of soul essences or consciousnesses inhabiting one body simultaneously. These may rotate in and out of the driver’s seat as needed to accomplish a task.”

It is said that after his death in 1990, the soul of Devraha Baba, often described as “an ageless yogi” and an “unusual hermit”, who was popular amongst both common people and the most powerful people, would speak through the living body of his successor, Purushottamacharyaji, Devdasji (Bade Sarkar), Devraha Hans Baba. But not all cases of a departed soul entering a body are at an evolved elevated level. Many years ago, near Doiwala, situated in Uttarakhand on the Dehra Dun- Rishikesh-Haridwar road, a man had gone for his daily dip in the river when a flash flood carried him downstream and he drowned. At that precise moment, a wandering spirit saw the opportunity and entered his body. His body, now occupied by a new spirit, emerged from the river and walked back to where his chappals and clothes were heaped on the river bank, and he dressed himself.

A part of the soul’s consciousness stays with the body for some time after death, and using this knowledge, the “new soul man” walked back to his homestead and locked himself in a room. Family members were even more shocked when the "new soul man" declared in a strange voice that from now on, food, etc, was to be left outside the door.  They were even more alarmed when a few days later, whiffs of a foul smell began emanating from the room. A chance visit by a sadhu seeking alms led to a struggle and great resistance from the spirit -- “I won’t leave, I won’t leave,” he shouted, to the eviction of the new spirit. When the locked door was broken open, they discovered a decomposed body.

It isn’t only dead bodies that spirits or souls can enter. An exchange or entry of a spirit or soul into a living body can take place when the body is sleeping; unconscious; in a drugged state; under anesthesia; in emotional stress; involved in a near-death experience, or a suicide attempt and so on. Also, more than one spirit can enter a body. Spiritually-advanced souls can walk into adult bodies and bring new dimensions into play.  In each case, there are clear indications that a new or different soul, or a fragmented soul, or a spiritually-advanced soul, has entered a body -- dead or alive, but that’ll be the subject of a column in the future.

The source for this post:

sundayguardianlive.com
author: Veenu Sandal

click HERE

5 Famous Haunted Houses

The houses we're going to be looking at today:   Myrtles Plantation; Chamber's Mansion; Franklin Castle, LaLaurie Mansion; Sprague Mansion.

I grew up in a house filled with paranormal activity and hauntings.  When I was young, in my grandmother's house, no one ever talked about it, or the strange occurrences were shrugged off and given lame mundane explanations.  It probably made the adults living in that house feel more secure about the world around them.  Logical excuses were easier to assimilate into our conventional mid-west lives.

But, aha, I kept a journal, not only during the time I lived with my grandmother in the old house on East Second St in Mitchell SD, but also in the house I raised six of my children in located in 
Fremont NE.  

Here's a link to some of those experiences.  The newest posts will be at the top, but there's more juicy interesting experiences if you scroll down as well:  click  HERE

• Myrtles Plantation
  Location:  St. Francisville LA

Take an historic old antebellum plantation home from 1796, surround it with trees draped with Spanish moss, and set it in voodoo-rich Louisiana and you have the perfect setting for ghosts. But, you still need mayhem and history to generate ghostly spirits and there are lots of both at the Myrtles Plantation.

In 1808, Clark Woodruff took charge of the plantation from his deceased father-in-law, General David Bradford, where he kept things running along with his wife, Sara, and their three kids. Legend has it that Woodruff also took a special liking to a slave he owned named Chloe. But Chloe was immensely jealous of Woodruff’s family and baked a birthday cake filled with poisonous oleander leaves. Woodruff’s wife, Sara, and two of the children died. Chloe confessed, but fellow slaves hung Chloe and dumped her body in the Mississippi.

A host of other natural deaths occurred in the home, but the only other murder was when plantation owner William Winter was shot and killed in 1871 while standing on the front porch. He supposedly staggered inside, dying on the 17th step of the home. Myrtles Plantation is also reportedly built on the site of an old Indian burial ground and during the Civil War, Union soldiers ransacked the home.

While it is hard to separate fact from fiction, popular sightings of ghosts around Myrtles Plantation include the large mirror in the home that contains the spirits of Sara Woodruff and her children, ghosts seen around the 17th step and, of course, Chloe who is outside, tending to her plantings. The house is on National Register of Historic places and is now a bed and breakfast.

• Chamber's Mansion
  Location:  San Francisco CA

In the prestigious Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco is the Chambers Mansion, which was built in 1887 and named after its first owner, Richard Chambers, who was a silver mine tycoon. Legend goes that Chambers lived here with his two nieces who hated each other.

When Chambers died in 1901, the nieces inherited the mansion. One reportedly bought the house next door and moved in while the other sister, Claudia, stayed. Claudia reportedly loved pigs but met her fate one day when she was nearly cut in half from what her family called a “farm implementation accident.”

Ghost expert Jim Fassbinder, who conducts haunted home tours in San Francisco, “claims that an insane member of the Chambers family, who was kept in the attic, chased Claudia downstairs into the Josephine room and killed her.”

The mansion was eventually converted to the Mansion Hotel in 1977, where celebs such as Barbra Streisand, Robert DeNiro and Robin Williams stayed. Many guests have reported strange occurrences while staying there.

• Franklin Castle
  Location:  Cleveland OH

Complete with a tower, turrets, balconies, stone outcroppings, gargoyles, wrought-iron fixtures and fences, this imposing, Gothic-style Franklin Castle is said to be Ohio’s most haunted home.

It was built in 1860 for Hannes Tiedemann, an immigrant from Germany who became a wholesale grocer-turned-banker. Depending on who you believe, Tiedemann was either an evil tyrant who had a hand in mysterious deaths that occurred in the home between 1865-1895 — including the deaths of three babies — or he was a decent and hard-working man, but faced unfortunate circumstances.

There have been many owners of the home including a German singing society and a church group. Presently, it is owned by an Internet businesswoman who wanted to renovate it and turn it into a B&B and hold “haunted mystery weekends,” but a fire in 1999 derailed her plans. 

Paranormal activity includes sounds of footsteps, babies crying, and doors slamming.

• LaLaurie  Mansion
  Location:  New Orleans LA

Horrific stories of torture and abuse inflicted on slaves who worked in this house were reported in the 1830s and the abuser was said to be Madame Delphine LaLaurie, a socialite of great wealth and prominence in New Orleans.

Delphine and her husband, Dr. Louis LaLaurie, would host elaborate parties at the house, but soon, stories of vicious cruelty emerged. In one tale, Delphine was whipping the child of a slave when the child broke away and ran to the roof, falling to her death. The turning point for the home came when a fire broke out and when help arrived, they witnessed horrific scenes of punishment and torture inflicted on the slaves.

The home has undergone many changes and owners over the years, with one of the most recent owners actor Nicolas Cage. Cage said of the LaLaurie house, “You know, other people have beachfront property; I have ghost-front property… ” Unfortunately, Cage lost the property in a foreclosure auction. Read the chronology of the LaLaurie House by the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

• Sprague Mansion
  Location:  Cranston RI

One of Cranston’s most prosperous families, the Sprague family, owned Cranston Print Works, a textile mill that was the first to make calico prints and help pioneer chemical bleaching.

When William Sprague died in 1836, he left the business to his two sons, Amasa and William II. Amasa concentrated on the family business while William II focused on politics, serving as a U.S. Representative, Governor, and United States Senator.

On Dec. 31, 1843, Amasa was found shot and beaten on the road between his textile mill and his mansion. A man was hanged for the crime, but later found to be innocent. The true killer was never found. The Sprague family’s fortunes eventually faded and the Sprague Mansion changed ownership many times until the Cranston Historical Society saved it from demolition in 1967.

Hauntings of the mansion most often observed include Amasa in the wine cellar and a spirit thought to be “Charlie the butler” descending the main stairway. Legend goes that Charlie’s hopes and dreams of riches were dashed when his daughter did not marry the wealthy home owner’s son. Read more about the Sprague Mansion ghosts.

The Source for this blog post:

cnbc.com
author:  Paul Toscano

The Witch's Desk ~ How do you detect the presence of Spirits in your house?

Spirits are always interesting, though they are not always fun, but mostly (from my own experience) they actually are. This is just me, or maybe it’s that I’ve only had pleasant or neutral experiences with them so far. For whatever reason, I just don’t feel frightened by them. I have a friend that I have done spiritual House Cleansings with around the Omaha area, and the one thing that I’ve noticed is that a lot of the time you won’t have to ask yourself if you have a spirit in your house, you will most definitely know; but this is often the more extreme cases, real “hauntings” with something that is unpleasant, or obnoxious, or invasive in a very negative way. Through this experience, visiting other people’s homes and talking to them about their situations, I also realize that some people are just naturally frightened by the idea of the ethereal…ghosts, spirits, anything that goes bump in the night.

The house that we had in Nebraska always had spirit activity, and I’ve only recently learned from some of my daughters, since they’ve grown, is that when they were small there was an unpleasant “something” on the landing (we had a split level home). One of my daughters told me that she felt it so strongly, and it was such a scary menacing presence to her, that she was often afraid to go up and down the stairs. Years afterwards, when I began to regularly cleanse the house, this entity disappeared.

I remember the exact day I decided I had enough.  I was sweeping down the stairs, on a day that I was all alone, which rarely happened with our large home-schooling family, when I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up and a rush of goose bumps come up my legs. This was accompanied by the very unnerving sensation of someone (a presence) behind me. Did this scare me? No, I actually found it interesting, and it also made me angry. I considered this an obnoxious invasion of my personal space. I threw the broom down and, muttering under my breath, I stalked off around the house to gather up white candles, incense, salt and water, cussing the whole time. I guess I felt it was an inconvenience that was unnecessary, and I would have to take the time to straighten this spirit out and set some boundaries.

My kids claimed later, and continue to do so to this day, that I tend to do too good a job of cleansing, and some of the entities we have shared our space with were actually interesting, an integral part of the house and it’s atmosphere.

Anyway, I digress... on to the subject at hand. The individual who asked me this question is obviously not sure what constitutes a spirit’s presence, and what may just be some sort of natural occurrence, or an overactive imagination. Let’s look at all those tell tale signs of spirit activity:

• 1) Scents: It’s happened to me before, I’ll smell my grandmother’s perfume, or her favorite flower (roses). You might smell cigars or cigarette smoke in a house where no one smokes. You might smell a loved one’s favorite food. Anytime you pick up a scent that is not explainable on a physical level, you might want to consider that it’s coming from another source. I’ve heard about (but never experienced personally) the unpleasant and obnoxious odors of malevolent spirits. This is just something to keep in mind. Most of the time it’s all good, but once in a while you might run into something unusual. 

• 2) Noises: Several times over the past few decades, since my grandmother’s death, I have heard her call my name. Often this has happened in the dead of night and woken me out of a deep sleep, but there have been occasions where this has happened during the day, when I’m wide awake and usually when I am alone. It’s cool, nothing scary. She’s just touching base, letting me know that she’s still near, that there is still some sort of connection. (Death isn’t the end, it’s just a different plane of existence.) Besides hearing voices, there are other odd sounds you may experience, like knocking, scraping, footsteps, growling (not usually a good thing), hammering, human sounds (like hand clapping , finger snapping, muttering); and always, you will have no logical explanation for these sounds.

• 3) Temperature Changes/Drafts: We’re talking big in-your-face changes that are unexplainable through normal physics. This means the furnace man won’t be able to explain to you a 40 degree drop in 5 seconds.  I guess there are more subtle temperature changes you can experience, but people are more liable to explain them away, such as a sudden cold breeze that wafts through a room, gently lifting the pages of a newspaper; a momentary “chill” that gives you a shudder. Besides unusual temperature changes, you might experience drafts, the kind of draft that flickers and toys with candle flames, the kind of draft that can’t possibly come from anything of this world because there is no place for the draft to originate from.

• 4) Electronic/Electrical Malfunctions: We’ve often heard that the spirit world has the ability to collect energy from our electrical gadgets and use this energy to manifest all kinds of paranormal phenomena. I don’t know if any of this can ever really be scientifically proven, but it seems that a lot of these occurrences (odd things happening with your electrical gadgets, lamps, lights, computers, etc.) almost always seem to precipitate a mad rush of paranormal activity. Do you have appliances, lights, a television, computer, or other gadget that turns itself off and on? …that turns itself off and on regularly?  Do you have flickering lights with no mundane explanation of why?  Do you receive blank messages on your cell phones, with no source of origin?

• 7) Moving Objects: This is pretty extreme and the fodder for many movies and television shows. But it does happen, and the most basic kind of activity that I’ve personally witnessed (with moving objects) involved a series of cupboard doors that would be closed one minute and all open the next; drawers or doors, same thing. I’ve yet to see anything as dramatic or theatrical as portrayed in the movies. Remember, for a spirit to move a physical object, an object of atoms and matter, it would take an incredible amount of energy.

• 6) The Goosebump Factor: Some people are more sensitive to the paranormal and its energy than others. There are a lot of people who can actually “feel” the presence of spirits, even if they are not sensitive enough to communicate with them (as a medium or psychic).  They still know dang well that there is something there, and they can often pick up on positive or negative energy. Never underestimate The Goosebump Factor.

Source:

My "other blog",
Magickal Connections
February 25th, 2015

Paranormal Quest, video blog

I started a new video blog series at my Youtube Channel:  Paranormal Quest.  We started off the first episode last night with an evening session on a Ouija Board.  The following video is the result.

 

 

The Witch's Diary: Fan Mail

The topics include prophetic dreams; dejavu; mediumship; spirits; mirrors; the moon...I chose two pieces of fan-mail from two young ladies to answer in a video message. I love your emails, and I enjoy sharing magickal experiences! You're all awesome!...Blessed Be