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Volume III: Special Issue
December 2018

In This Issue

 

 

Why a special issue?


House Kheperu thought it would be fun to put out a special edition of the newsletter focusing not so much on work and learning but on experiences - namely paranormal experiences. A few of our members and allies have written pieces on the history of the ghost story being told during the holidays, actual experiences and a ghostly poem. We hope you enjoy reading them as much as we enjoyed writing and/or experiencing them.

A Brief History of Telling Ghost Stories During the Winter Holidays by Loraine Wilmers

 

 
Long nights, cold weather and time spent by the fire to keep warm make for the perfect setting to spin a tale, especially one that thrills and scares at the same time. Ghosts and stories of the paranormal are popular today around Halloween – all year round for some - but during the Victorian age Christmas was the time to share tales of specters and apparitions. The years 1840-1920 are considered by scholars to be the golden age of the ghost story. In fact, 1843 was the year that possibly the most famous ghost story was written but we’ll get to that later. During this same time period, the Spiritualist movement saw its rise and fall. Some say there may be a correlation between the two.

In 1764, Horace Walpole wrote the novel The Castle of Otranto about a sickly bridegroom who is crushed by a giant helmet and his father, the lord of the castle, plots to marry the young princess in his son’s place. The book is thought to be the first true ghost story and it began the cycle of Gothic literature where ghosts were prominently featured.

Ann Radcliff is considered by many to be the greatest author of the Gothic story. The Mysteries of Udolpho (1764) established the basic characteristics of the Gothic story: a beleaguered heroine, an evil aristocrat, a virtuous hero, a traveler and, of course, a ghost or ghosts. Nearly all her stories ended with there not being any real ghosts but instead an explanation for the strange happenings.

Walter Scott’s “The Tapestried Chamber” from 1831 is said to be one of the first important ghost stories and he is considered the inventor of the short ghost story. His stories were pulled from “true accounts” that were being told at the time and he established many of the analogies that made up a ghost story.

If you exclude Edgar Allen Poe (he did not write any ghost stories), J. Sheridan Le Fanu (originator of the vampire story and author of Carmilla from 1871) is said to be the first great author of the new golden age. His ghost stories were his greatest accomplishment with works like “Auginer Street” from 1853. He, as well as Walter Scott, thought that ghost stories should be read aloud for maximum effect.

Charles Dickens was a magazine editor and the magazines he published always had ghost stories in the Christmas editions. It was he who popularized the telling of ghost stories during the holidays. In 1843, he wrote A Christmas Carol, a tale about Ebenezer Scrooge and the ghosts that visit him on Christmas Eve. From his first encounter with the ghost of Jacob Marley:
 
      At this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook its chain with such a dismal and appalling noise, that Scrooge held on tight to his chair, to save himself from falling in a swoon. But how much greater was his horror, when the phantom taking off the bandage round its head, as if it were too warm to wear indoors, its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast!

Three more ghosts visit Scrooge showing him Christmas past, present and future all to show him what may become of him and those close to him. It is said that Dickens’ genius was marrying the gothic with the sentimental and used ghosts and goblins to reaffirm basic Victorian values but other writers of the time were less concerned with social issues and more interested in scaring their readers. A Christmas Carol is still the most popular ghost story written to this day.

There are other stories that take place around the Christmas season: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (it is set during the winter), Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw, Edward Gorey’s The Haunted Tea Cozy: A Dispirited Diversion for Christmas, High Spirits by Robertson Davies, and the modern tale A Nightmare Before Christmas by Tim Burton. If you don’t already, start a new tradition this year and read your favorite ghost story aloud with family and/or friends gathered around the fire or the dining table.
 
Sources:
Morton, Lisa. Ghosts. London: Reaktion Books Ltd, 2015. Print.
Smith, Andrew. The Ghost Story 1840-1920: A Cultural History. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2010. Print.
Saricks, Joyce. “At Leisure: Ghost Stories for Christmas.” Booklist. December 1, 2009, Volume 106 Issue 7, p23. Print.
Dickey, Colin. “A Plea to Resurrect the Christmas Tradition of Telling Ghost Stories.” Smithsonian. December 15, 2017. Smithsonian.com. Web. October 13, 2018.


 

Outside the Window by Jack Edwards

 

In early September, I vaguely remember, the dogs' howl and howling by the pane. The moon shone bright as fall was near and its onslaught had brought the rain. The air would churn and the leaves would fall onto the stoop of the abode. And that night, and nights thereafter, I heard the cackling as it arose.

The laughter would start as dim as could be, on the precipice of another world and this, but soon it would grow, in volume and speed, leaving my canine and I transfixed. What white witch lay beyond our walls? What ghost beckoned to us from beyond? For whom did the banshee cry, for this life, soon, would be gone?

My breath would heat on the surface pane of the window that lay before, as I peered into the black of the night crested streets with the rain clouds started to form. The cackle did cry! Above the street and nigh! It rattled my pane and crystallized my breath into images betraying the eye. For there in the visage of my whisper came a face I could not decipher.

I stumbled back and fell over the chair as I looked upon what was happening there. Through the window and into the room came a woman dressed as hellebore in bloom. She was present and not, here and there, as her laughter slowly filled the air, but soon it fell into a wail and the spirit spun her tale.

“I was once so young and fair. A sister, had I, that could not compare. But I was weak and terribly ill that could not survive without aid of pill. My sister grew jealous of attentions abundant and took my pills being quite despondent. A switch, made she, in their design and nature that I had not realized until I was in danger. Buried under the cathedral's hill, her spurious tears fell there still. She took my place, my love and marriage, she stole my life, with husband and carriage. But I'll show her,” she went on with her plight, “I shall scare her to the white! I shall haunt her very steps, her household shall remain unkempt! Her servants shall not step foot in the house! They'll be no tender moments with her spouse! No baby shall keep her attentions at night if her husband can't put up the fight! I shall squeeze and I shall pull! I shall torment her soul! And when at last her spirit's been freed, she shall have payed what she owes me!”

And with that, the woman cackled on, her visage dissipating until it was gone. But still her voice could be heard down the street accompanying the quickening of my heart beat. Who knows if any murder is just, in jealousy, revenge, love or lust? But if murder is planned from beyond the grave, can there be hope for us to save?

 

 

An Encounter at Inspiration House by Kelly Wilmers

 

The day started off like any other day. My child Tori and I were getting ready to head to Oberlin, Ohio for the day to help paint and clean at Inspiration House. The weather was sunny and almost 70° here in Columbus, Ohio. The temperature began to drop drastically the closer we came to Oberlin. By the time we reached Inspiration House it had dropped almost twenty degrees. Tori and I were not prepared or dressed for this drastic temperature difference.

When we arrived at Inspiration House, we were given a tour of the main house and the surrounding property. As we were walking around the house, I noticed multiple spirits present. During this time, I shut them out, so I could finish the task I had started. I was working in the doctor’s office with Elyria, painting the trim and walls of the room. We chatted and continued to work and as time went on I started to get extremely cold. I just figured this was because of the temperature drop. It was about 50° and I shouldn’t have been as cold as I was. As we continued to work, I began to feel that something was wrong and all I could think about was getting home to my wife. I became increasingly uncomfortable with the overwhelming urge to go home and find my family. I was off center and just had a very strange feeling, so Tori and I decided to head home earlier than planned.

Once I arrived home, I began to feel a bit better but still could not shake a feeling of being exceptionally needy and clingy. I was uncomfortable if I was more than a foot away from my wife which is something not typical of me at all. She began to ask if I was okay at this point.

We went ahead with plans to go out dancing at the local Goth night. As I was debating what to wear that night, I began to feel as if my mannerisms and personality were shifting. I shook it off and proceeded to take a shower.

While I was in the shower, I was picking up on a voice in my head that wasn’t mine. I didn’t know who’s it was. I kept hearing, “Where is my mommy?” said over and over in the tone of a young child. As I was stepping out of the shower, I began picking up on emotions of fear and loneliness and of being lost, so very very lost. I stepped out of the bathroom to talk to my wife and she immediately noticed that my posture and stance had changed. I told her that I felt very small and young. I felt as if I was afraid of my home because it all seemed strange to me. It was about this time that I finally put all the pieces together and realized I was picking up on the thoughts and emotions of a small girl who had lived at Inspiration House at some point. I started to think back on all the strange and different things that had been happening to me all day and realized that it had all been this little girl trying to communicate with me.

This was the first time I had experienced picking up on a spirit and it getting so far into my head. As we left the house for the night, I was continuing to exhibit different behaviors that were not mine. I was giggling like a very young girl and my speech pattern had shifted to sound like someone who was very young. I went into the club to try to shake some of it off and to work through other parts.

The next morning, I woke up and still could not get the little girl out of my head. She was showing me things like the main staircase of Inspiration House and trying to get me to follow her up them. At this point, I reached out to Michelle (Belanger) to get permission to work with this little one. It required me to remotely access Inspiration House and the last thing I wanted to do was trip someone else’s senses or wards. After receiving permission to do this I sat down with my notebook to try and figure more things out.
 

Image courtesy of Jack Edwards
 
I was able to perceive a description of this little girl. She was petite and between the ages of 4 and 6 years old. What I noticed first was her hair: it fell in perfect ringlets to her shoulders and had a large bow holding the sides back off her face. Her hair was shiny black with hints of blue in the light. She was in a long dress that fell to her ankles with a ruffle along the bottom edge. It also had a yoke on the front and possibly a pinafore type garment over it. I could not tell what type of footwear she had on. Her features were very fine and frail looking. Her eyes were close set and her lips mimicked a perfect cupid’s bow. Her nose was slightly rounded at the end and could even be referred to as a ”button” nose.

I was not able to pick up a name even though she tried to communicate it to me. Her name was a more difficult concept for her to get through to me. This seems to be because she was communicating via emotions. She was too young to convey things with words. She also liked to use mental images to show me what she was trying to get through.

This young girl came across as very lost and lonely at first. The one phrase I continued to pick up from her over and over was, “Where’s my mommy?” I did not have an answer for her but once she realized I could see her she wanted to show me more. She had gone way too long without being able to communicate with anyone.

Once she realized I was willing to listen she became a bit more playful! She showed me how she had hidden in different places in the house to watch people go about their business. I also picked up an image of her peering around the bottom curve of the banister on the first floor with her hand outstretched reaching for mine. She wanted to show me her favorite places in the house. I followed her and she led me up to the very tiny room at the top of the stairs. I was uncertain what she was trying to show me there but I again picked up on her looking for her “Momma”. It was after this that I lost the connection with her and was finally able to get the last bits of her out of my head.

After talking to Michelle and Elyria, I haven’t been able to confirm much more than yes, there were young children that lived at the house. This leads me to one last question: was this truly the spirit of a young child or something masquerading as one? I may never know.
 

Shadows in the Room by Eilfie L. Music Edwards


Over the years, both in my personal life and in my profession as a paranormal investigator, I have seen some strange things I cannot explain. I am a very skeptical person that believes in the possibility of the unusual things that go bump in the night but question everything presented to me. The strange things that I have experience that might be paranormal are always so brief and not until after the fact do I realize something strange might have happened. These two short experiences happened a while ago, and I will recall them as best as I can from memory.

 A few years ago, while Jack and I were in Raleigh, we were staying with friends for a short time in a four-bedroom 1970’s style house. Jack and I were in the guest room. This house already had a strangeness about it with the layout, and I spent much of my time in the kitchen or the adjoining dining area where I painted and worked on various projects.  I often had the feeling of being watched in this large room. It was even more unusual to have that sense outside in the far back of the yard near an overgrown garden.

One day while Jack was working down the hall in the one room turned office, I had decided to take a nap in our room even though we didn’t have blackout curtains and it was bright and sunny. The head of the bed was up against the window and was across from the bedroom door. I am not sure how long I had been asleep but woke up on my side in what I believe was sleep paralysis. I’ve had this happen before and they are never fun. I could see my room with the light of day filtering in and unable to move. As I laid there waiting for this to pass, I could feel something near the bed on the side I was facing close to my knees. I couldn’t see anything with my own eyes - it was as if it was just out of sight - but I could more sense it. What I could sense by the bed was a child, or at least the height and shape of one. This child like figure was staring at me and seemed to be curious as to who I was. This was not frightening as I thought it would be, but it was a bit unsettling. I couldn’t make out any kind of features and couldn’t speak to ask it any questions. This only lasted a few moments, though the time seemed to stretch out while I laid in bed. I finally woke up fully and was able to move and sat up looking around the small room. Nothing was in the room and I would have been surprised if something still was. I couldn’t even feel anything still in the room. I don’t recall telling Jack immediately what happened and just set it to the back of my mind.

Either that night or the next night, Jack and I had another visit - together this time. It was late and we had already gone to bed. I always fall asleep faster than Jack and can sleep through most anything. Jack woke me up late in the night and I turned over a bit to ask what was wrong. He asked me softly if I could see what he was seeing. I wasn’t sure what he meant but he motioned to the end of the bed near the closed door that lead to the hallway. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust before I could see two tall figures standing at the end of our bed. They were dense shadows against the darkness of the room with only a bit of a distinguishing form that I could see. They were sort of there and sort of not. I wasn’t entirely sure what I was looking at other than something standing and looking at us with keen interest. They stood there doing nothing when Jack and I just wanted to sleep. I think Jack finally asked them if they wanted anything, nothing was heard so he stated that we were going back to sleep. I turned over and fell asleep with ease and didn’t experience anything else that night. Jack told me later he also turned over and went back to sleep without further incident.

After that night, I mentioned to Jack what happened to me before and wondered if there was any connection between the two. We didn’t encounter these figures again in the house or our room. The house always felt strange, but it never felt unwelcoming. I am not sure if the figures were simply visiting or they were a part of the house.  

My brushes with the other world are always brief it seems. We always hope for large spectacles but should look out for the small things. A wisp of smoke or a far-off voice to gain our attention, for what reason it is rarely known.
 

Night Terrors by Michelle Belanger

 

Wednesday Nov. 28, 2018

Philadelphia, PA

Le Meridien Hotel, Room 603, (view of Love Park)

Time of recording (talk to text): 11:18 AM

 

Maybe it shouldn’t surprise me that something happened in my hotel room last night, considering what I came out here to do. And if there wasn’t physical evidence when I woke up, I would have attributed the experiences simply to classic night terrors — the kind that are purely physiological and tied to sleep paralysis.

However, the experience began when a sound in the room woke me up. It was a slow rattle and then a thump as if something fell to the floor. I was very certain I was awake once it hit the floor, and, while I could move, I held very still trying to assess my surroundings.

It felt like someone was in the room with me, although I know no one could be. Not only was the hotel room door locked and bolted from my side but I had also bunched up a towel under the base of it to keep light and sound from spilling into the room. Anyone who tried opening the door to come in would have had to push past all of that — neither a simple nor exactly a quiet task. And that wasn’t where the sound had come from. The sound had been from the other side of the room, in the direction of the desk.

Another sound, this time of breathing. Again, my eyes were closed, there was a profound and oppressive sense of something standing at the foot of the bed. Again, let me stress that I was completely lucid. I was not afraid – not yet. I was simply experiencing my surroundings in that detached way that I have come to develop over years of encounters with the paranormal and unexplained.

My phone was on the nightstand so I could check the time, but I resisted the urge to reach over, waiting to see whether or not anything else would happen. And it did. There was pressure at the bottom of the bed and then a full body thrum. This second sensation, although it felt intensely physical, was not a shiver or a reaction to the cold. I recognized it because I have had it before. It is a sensation that often occurs prior to out of body experience. Robert Monroe, who wrote extensively on the subject, called it the vibratory state.

In an encounter several years ago, I had experienced this same vibratory state with another entity at the foot of my bed as it attempted to pull me out of my body to interact on its side of reality. I know that might sound strange, but I do a lot of work on that side, essentially in spirit myself. But I do that work willingly.

So I pushed it away. The sensation faded, and I kept listening with my eyes closed. I didn’t have a clear picture of the entity in my room beyond the sense that it was mostly human in shape, and aggressive if not actively malevolent. I think if I were a different person with different experiences, this particular incident would have left me terrified. And I'm pretty sure that's what it wanted. I’m also certain it was puzzling over why I was not afraid. And that might’ve changed the way it interacted with me.

After a few moments, I felt it tug again, and those shivers of sensation cascaded through my body from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet. This time it was much harder to fight off – not the entity, but the pull to leave my body.

But sleeping is serious business, at least as far as I'm concerned, especially on the night before an investigation. So I really had no patience for this bullshit. Once I was certain this was not sleep paralysis but an actual encounter with an intelligent entity, I fought back. That’s one of the other benefits of all of the training and practice that I've had over the years: I can meet spirits on their own terms and fight back in ways that go beyond the physical realm. Ways that most people cannot consciously fight, although I believe everyone could if they realized it was possible.

Focusing my energy into an intense, incandescent ball, I sent it out in a surge around me, a great explosion of forceful will. This pushed the entity back. It did not immediately respond, either - possibly because this response surprised it. Like I said, although I believe many people could do this, very few believe they can, so they don’t.

Still lying on my back in the bed, I opened my eyes and scanned the room. Although it was not very clear as impressions go, there was a shadow near the foot of the bed now a couple feet off from where I had first sensed it. It stood against this large wardrobe in the room. Its head did not reach all the way to the top, but it came close. That would make the entity about six feet tall, or a little more. It appeared to be standing still and I got the sense that it was assessing the situation in much the same way I had when the noise of it knocking things to the floor first woke me up.

Because I really had no desire to either get yanked out of my body or to stay awake for the rest of the night fighting with this thing, I lashed out again with another burst of focused Will. White hot energy and force erupted from my center point outward, striking all four walls around me as well as the floor and the ceiling. This was a variation on my shielding technique, although generally it is not so forceful. I made this an aggressive defense. In my mind, I touched every one of those walls and the ceiling and the floor and reaffirmed for myself that they were barriers to keep things out. They were barriers to keep me protected. And this thing did not belong. With a final push, I shoved it from the room and with those shields in place, I effectively slammed and bolted the door to the subtle side of the sleeping chamber as well.

I used to clear and shield every hotel room I ever stayed in, after an incident in Wisconsin with a very aggressive ghost. But over the years, I fell out of the practice, in part because I am curious about the world around me and the worlds beyond that. I am not afraid of experiences. While I do not actively provoke things into attacking me, neither do I dissuade encounters like this when I stay outside of my home. Not at first. But I was sleeping, dammit, and this thing needed to leave me alone.

Once I was satisfied that it was gone and not coming back, I did a few breathing exercises, rolled over onto my side, and let myself drift back to sleep. At that point, I still allowed for the possibility that the entire encounter was potentially sleep paralysis and hypnagogic hallucinations. I didn’t believe that, but as a good investigator, I couldn’t rule it out, either. Not until I checked for physical evidence in the room.

When my alarm went off the next morning, before getting into the shower, I checked around the room, starting first with where I had heard that initial sound – the loud rolling and clatter and stop. It was exactly what I had suspected — the heavy pen to my iPad, which I had left on the hotel desk, had been pushed to the floor. Because the pen is round, although the surface is entirely even on the table, I didn’t want to completely rule out the possibility that it just rolled to the floor on its own. I know that sounds unlikely, but again, as a good investigator, I preferred to examine all possibilities and I try not to jump to paranormal explanations without considering physical explanations first.

But the pen wasn't the only thing that had moved. The door to the wardrobe was also partly ajar. I had hung a shirt up in it the day before, but I had been certain to close both doors again. It was something I remembered clearly because the door on my right had taken a little extra push to click into place. Magnets held the doors shut once they clicked — rather strong magnets, I confirmed as I once again pushed the door closed and attempted to jiggle it open.

I wasn’t convinced the nocturnal visitor had entered through that wardrobe, although I’d seen stranger things play out with closets in a handful of investigations.

I would make certain to seal those doors before sleeping in this room again.

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