Category: Spirits

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Personal experiences: Part 6 – Afterwards or wait a minute Mr. Postman.

Australian postbox

This is a six part story about a paranormal event that occurred in January 1980. As usual, it’s told without any embellishments and according to a document that I had written after the event.

The camp ended shortly afterwards, and I went home with a sense of wonder that such a thing could happen. I told several of my friends about it, but few were really interested in my story, apart from that fact it made a good ‘ghost’ story. I told my mother who had no answers, and my father just dismissed it as a group hallucination.

Shawn, however, was never the same after that camp. He became my bane of three future camps. He riled me up so much at the time that I was even contemplating giving him a pounding, but I’m happy to say that never happened. I have to say that he was the only person I ever felt that way about.

When I’d see him at solo competitions, he would just stand there with his friend Terry staring at me and laughing, like Beavis and Butthead.

It was as though he had made it his mission to make sure that my time around him as unpleasant as possible and he did a good job of it, but fortunately, I finally started to come into my own and had much better protection.

I also heard that he was messing around with the occult when he was at home.  I never found out what became of him, or if he’s even still alive.

The incident itself was isolated. Nothing similar occurred on future camps. For that I was grateful, though at the time, somewhat disappointed, too.

There is an allure you have when you’re young to the supernatural, especially the dark side of it. Part of you doesn’t really believe it’s true, and the other part wants to believe and while that was the only camp where such things happened, it was by no means the only event of that nature that happened in my life.

Sadly, my ignorance and lack of knowledge might have contributed to the situation there. If I knew then what I know now, that stairway would have been cleared before anything even had a chance to start.

Before I left that 1980 camp, I made an agreement with Shane that we would write down our own experiences of those two weeks and send them to each other.

I started the moment I got home. I took out my father’s old post war typewriter and wrote a 7 page document on the events. (And also interestingly enough, the light bulb in my room blew out three times during the actual writing, but never before, or after I was done.)

Then I rushed to get it photocopied and mailed it out to Shawn. I waiting for days and weeks for his response, rushing to the letter box each day, but the waiting was in vain.

He never did send anything back. The only feedback I got on it was at the end of that year, where he confirmed he had received it and deemed it ‘too dangerous’.

Also, an odd thing happened with the document. It suddenly vanished, and in spite of turning everything inside out a dozen times, I could not find it anywhere. It only reappeared nine months later, in a bookcase I never used. I still have that original document today.

This was an isolated incident as far as things went with me.

I retell it as a cautionary tale on how easy it can be to attract such things to you.

As intense as this was at the time, it pales in comparison with some of the other things that happened in my life and I really have to admit that it’s made for a very interesting one.

I hope you found my experience of interest.

Next: Who is really responsible for readings?

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Personal experiences: Part 5 – Possessed or Q and A with the Devil.

Statesboro High School

This is a six part story about a paranormal event that occurred in January 1980. As usual, it’s told without any embellishments and according to a document that I had written after the event.

The next morning as I was going down the stairs, I felt that the chain that the cross was on grow hot. It was an odd sensation. It was a definite heat, though I guess I could have been imagining it, too.

Shawn told me that every time he saw the cross, he had the urge to get me to take it off. Indeed, he insisted that I should take it off. Every time I went down the stairs, I felt the chain get heavy, and the urge to take it off come over me. I nearly once did so, but thought better of it.

A bit later on, back up the stairs, I was walking with Shawn towards the doors on the other side of the room when they opened for him. We walked through and they closed behind us. I asked how he did that, as I had felt no wind. He said, he didn’t know. He was just thinking that wouldn’t it be good if the doors opened and they did.

The next day, the temptation to take the cross off was so strong that I actually felt uncomfortable wearing it. The night, Shawn was trying to make me take it off, once again, and I was refusing as usual when he suddenly doubled up in what he said was an agonizing pain. The thought that I should give the cross to him entered my mind. I asked him if he wanted me to give it to him, and he said, yes. I almost did, but decided against it. With that choice, the pain abruptly stopped. I asked him if he would have worn it and he said: No, moods change, and he wouldn’t have given it back either.

Things become quiet after that for a short while. As I wore the cross, I felt protected. The camp went on and was coming to the end. It was only two weeks, but it felt like a very long two weeks.

On the last day, we were all clearing up after ourselves, and I found myself, ironically, being told to sweep the stairs with Shawn. We discussed what had happened, and I asked him about the voice he heard. I was curious about if I could talk to it and asked some questions. Shawn agreed.

The first thing I asked was if Robert Rice died there, and the answer was he didn’t, nor were his ashes upstairs.

I then asked if this was the Devil. The answer was yes. Had he tried to get me before? Yes, he had and was trying to get me now. I asked, why me? It answered that it had failed before and it didn’t like failing and it was trying to possess me. I asked why me and I was told that I was more vulnerable than other people and I expected him to get me. It also said it had posed as my subconscious mind, pretending to be someone who was helpful. I asked if it was after anybody else at the camp, but it said it only me.

I then asked about the pressure we had felt in the stairs. What was it? He said it was trying to frighten us, and it was a stupid thing to have had the séance. I asked what it was trying to do to Shawn when he said the Lords Prayer backwards. The answer was that It was trying to possess him.

I asked if he had succeeded, but he said, no because he hadn’t done it long enough. He also said that he had possessed many people, but they didn’t know it. They just thought they had a bad temper.

I asked if I was interfering with him and if I was a danger to him. He said yes and I was. It told me that the cross gave me some protection, and so did asking for God’s help, but an imaginary cross was not powerful enough and I couldn’t ask for God’s help all the time and I was most vulnerable when I was asleep. It had decided to use the staircase because I had to use it to get to the bathroom. It had taken over Shawn because he was my friend and was using it as a stepping stone to get to me. It also said that it had blown out the lights.

My mistake had been leaving Shawn on the stairway at that time and telling him about my experiences, which left him open to such things.

I asked a few more questions, but all Shawn was now getting was ‘stop it you bastard!’ I stopped and Shawn came ‘back’. He told me that at first he had let me talk to this thing, but after a few questions, he had lost control and it sounded like two people have a conversation. He also couldn’t remember any of what had been said, something I later found out that this was typical of a channel. He also said that sometimes he was reluctant to answer my questions because he felt he was lying.

With what I know now, many of those answers actually make no sense, nor do they ring true.  My feelings are that it was certainly not the Devil, imagined or otherwise. Also, if Shawn felt he was lying, and he didn’t say which questions were lies, then there’s no reason any of it could have been the truth.

I seriously doubt that any of it was true. If Shawn felt it was a lie, then there is no reason to tell me what was really going on, except to tell me what I thought I wanted to hear, and what it wanted me to hear.

This, of course, does beg the question if any channel you get is true.

I know that when I’m writing documents with the aid of my guide, some things flow amazingly well, and I can sense what feels like a connection, or a corridor. Other things don’t however, and I get a sense of anxiety or frustration and I end up erasing what has been written because I’m clearly not either in the space for writing, or the information I need just isn’t available to me as yet.

Sometimes there is also a tendency to write what you think is true, rather than what comes to you, assuming anything comes at all. It’s a trap that’s easy to fall into, and interestingly enough, those are the things that I find out more later on.

In regards to the entity at the camp, I really haven’t gotten any answers I’m happy with yet. I’ve channelled that it was an opportunistic entity who knew who I was, but… that doesn’t feel completely right. I feel I’m still missing something, even 33 years on.

For me, near enough isn’t good enough, but sometimes it’s all I have at the time.

Next: Afterwards

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Personal experiences: Part 4 – The Lord’s Prayer or Reyarp s’droL ehT

Nokia N8 - Haunted...

This is a six part story about a paranormal event that occurred in January 1980. As usual, it’s told without any embellishments and according to a document that I had written after the event.

It was later that day, after Shawn claimed he suddenly felt weak and dizzy on the staircase, that I heard a story that he and another friend of his were in the dorm.

Shawn had a tennis ball and racket in his hands and he claimed to have heard a voice tell him to throw the ball at his friend, Terry. He hesitated for a moment, and then served the ball right at him with all his might. Fortunately, it just missed him. He excused his actions by claiming that he couldn’t control himself. Terry, himself, was stunned.

At dinner that evening, he was looking flushed and his hands were shaking. Whenever he looked at him, he would just shake his head. During practice, I noticed that he was looking at everyone in a strange way, and his face was white. Many there also noticed this, and made comments about it. Even for Shawn, this was odd behaviour.

After dinner, he came up to me and said there was going to be another séance that night and I had to come to it. I knew this would be a bad idea, so I told him no.

I believed in demons and possession back then, and I was now starting to feel like I was in over my head.

So I discussed what was happening with, I believe two of the boys, David and Terry and David (who was a student there) suggested we should go visit one of the resident Christian brothers in the hope that they could help or at least tell us what to do. 

So, during a break, we went to visit one of them, and ended up having a long talk with him. To his credit, he didn’t just disbelieve us, and let us tell our story. In the end, he suggested that it could be some sort of mental telepathy and said that you should assume that there are no evil spirits around until you proved that there were.

It does sound strange that he pretty much dismissed any spirits but spoke about telepathy in the same breath. In any case, he did give some advise that we were able to use.

He said that if I really felt the need for protection, I could make an imaginary cross and call for God’s help by saying The Lord’s Prayer. So we decided to do  just that.

We went to the stairs and we all felt the presence  there, though it was not as strong as it had previously been.

We made the imaginary cross, said The Lord’s Prayer together and asked for help.  The presence then left and did not return until the final days of the camp, only then very weakly.

You would have thought this would be the end of it all, and really, it should have been, but you’d be wrong there.

The next day, we went swimming to a local pool as it was a hot summer’s day. Everyone was throwing a tennis ball around to each other. Shawn got hold of it and threw it right at me. He managed to hit the side of my face, though, being a tennis ball, it didn’t actually do any damage. I was still shocked, though. Later he told me that he didn’t want to throw it at me, and that he couldn’t even throw straight. He said that every time he looked at me, he would hear a voice saying ‘get him!’ and he was being instructed to stay close to me.

Later on, he told me that he was going to have the séance that night, and that I must come to it. I said I wouldn’t, but he seemed confident that I would come.

Then  someone mentioned that if you said The Lord’s Prayer backwards while looking in a mirror, you would see the Devil.  Well, this was too much for Shawn to resist doing, and so, before he planned to have the séance, he took a group of people down to the shower area and he had someone read the words while he repeated them back while looking in the mirror.

I stayed away, no longer wishing to be part of it. If I had gone, I might have witnessed what many others said they saw happen.  He said the first five words, then his cheeks went white and his eyelids went red, taking on a glow. I did note, however, that when everyone came up the stairs, they all had bloodshot eyes, and looked exhausted.

However, once, apparently wasn’t enough for they went downstairs and did it a second time, and this time, he had his friend, Terry, join him.

Shawn told me that he saw his hair, which was blond, go dark and his eyes appeared to glow and Terry said that a shadow passed over his face.  They both claimed to have stuttered one a word at one point, and then went into a trance. They said they could hear themselves speaking, but they couldn’t feel themselves doing it.

Interestingly enough, Shawn chose to not have the séance. He said he felt it was too dangerous.

That night, we were once again swarmed by the flying black beetles, entering into the dorm in plague proportions.

Interestingly enough, all the bugs fell on Shawn and Terry’s bed, but missed mine. They even bit Terry three times and they were also crawling towards Shawn and biting him. These bugs do not bite to the best of my knowledge.

A voice in my mind said: They won’t get you because you didn’t attend the Lord’s Prayer in the mirror business.

This time the bugs were also swarming in the shower area where they had said the prayer and soon there was a carpet of crunchy black beetles lying dead on the floor.

At that point, I found that one of the teens named Glenn had a cross necklace so I asked if I could borrow it. He agreed. Back in those days, I still believed in the Devil, and that was what I was starting to fear we were dealing with.  I hoped the cross would help protect me. 

Well, fear would be too strong a word, really. I can’t say I ever was scared or fearful. I was continually fascinated, though.

The bugs kept on crawling toward Shawn, so I decided to give the cross to him to see if it would help. The bugs stopped crawling towards him and attacking him.

Shawn told me he was hearing a voice saying that it was going to get me. I denied that it would but he insisted that it would.

In the morning, he took off the cross and said he didn’t need it any more. When it touched me, I felt a jolt, as though something had left me. I put it back on and it as though it did give me some protection. Indeed it was a quiet day and I hoped that whatever it was that was happening was over.

Once again, the timing of events is interesting. While I don’t believe in a Biblical Devil, I have seen evidence to suggest that there are demon type entities out there and most certainly, doing something like what they did in the mirror was just foolhardy.

Next: Q&A with the devil!

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Personal experiences: Part 3– The painting or painted faces filled with rage.

Image-1 (1)This is a six part story about a paranormal event that occurred in January 1980. As usual, it’s told without any embellishments and according to a document that I had written after the event.

As mentioned the presence of the staircase had vanished one morning, and Shawn and I were there messing around, trying to work out why. Rather foolishly, I might add, as we had no clue what we were doing. I guess we were feeling disappointed that it had gone as it had been rather exciting.

The painting of the red face was hung between the middle landing, and I honestly did not like it. It made me feel uneasy. We looked at the it and I suddenly decided I didn’t like it at all. I felt it would be better if I went and turned it around. There was no logical reason why I thought that would be worth doing, but at least I knew I wouldn’t have to look at it. However, Shawn decided that it needed to be turned around the correct way. He might have just being contrary for the sake of it, so I asked him why had he turned it back over. Did he like it?

He said, no, it just needed to be up the right way. He had to put it like that. I once again went to turn it over but he held me back so I left it along. In hindsight, maybe I should have just removed it when he wasn’t looking. On the other hand, I doubt it would have changed anything.

Between band practices, Shawn became more and more drawn to the stairs. He would ask me to come along. Normally I would, but after a few more times, I started to feel it was time to let this thing go and I told him no. I wasn’t sure what was really going on, but part of me was now saying: this is enough.

But Shawn said he felt he had to go there. He indicated he was compelled to so do, and when I asked if he could resist the urge, he couldn’t or didn’t want to and went through the doors.

I must admit, I, too, felt something drawing me there. Not sure if it was curiosity, or something more. There was one moment where I was alone in the dorm, and I suddenly felt something pulling at me. I could have resisted, but I didn’t. Part of me was curious as to what was happening.  Truth was, I was fascinated with the whole thing,  and wondered how true it was, and how far things might go. What is something tangible manifested itself. That would be a story worth telling others. Even though those were my motivations, I had not really defined them at the point of time. All I knew was that I was feeling compelled, and I was going to play the game. 

So, I got up from the bed, and slowly, almost like I was in a trance like state, made my way towards the doors. I could have snapped out of it at any time, but I was choosing not to. 

I was about to enter the staircase, when someone walked in from behind and broke the spell. The feeling suddenly left and I turned away, and went back to my bed. Five minutes later, Shawn walked in and asked if I wanted to go down the stairs with him. I was still amiable to the idea, and I agreed. We went down to the first landing and stopped. I suddenly felt very uneasy, and decided to leave.

Shawn said, no, stay here.

“You can,” I said, “but I’m going.”

And so I did. As I walked back out, I fancied I heard a voice in my mind say “Now I’ve got rid of you, now for Shawn.’

At that moment, Shawn claimed he suddenly felt weak in the legs and he nearly passed out.  He did not look good when he came back through the doors a minute later. The urge to return still was present, so I decided to just leave the dorm.

The thing about that thought in my mind made, in hindsight, no sense. If, whatever it was didn’t want me there, then why compel me? Did it just want just one of there alone? Did it want me or Shawn or both? Did I just think it to myself?

The only reason I mentioned it was because of the fact of what  happened to Shawn at the same moment I heard it.

That’s the thing about thoughts in your mind. Some of them do come from you, even if you’re not consciously thinking them. Some of them do appear to be from other sources, too, but I’ve have my fair share of random thoughts that lead nowhere, and I’ve certainly have my fair share of thoughts that later proved to be true.

Of all the things I experience, I’d say the thoughts in your mind are the ones that need to be the most scrutinized. Never accept them on faith that they are from another source, but on the other hand, don’t just dismiss them either.

Next: Mirror mirror.

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Personal experiences: Part 2 – Is there anyone there? or the little séance

A modern ouija board plus planchette

This is a six part story about a paranormal event that occurred in January 1980. As usual, it’s told without any embellishments and according to a document that I had written after the event.

After I had told people my experiences and people started to feel something on the stairway, everyone got excited and someone suggested that we have a séance, because there was a memorial in our room to someone called ‘Robert Rice’. Some were guessing that maybe he had died here, and his spirit was haunting the room.

I don’t believe this was the case and to this day I have no clue who Robert Rice actually was. He could have been a founder or maybe a student who died there.

Having no real Ouija Board, we created our own out of paper and used a plastic cup to spell out letters.

Just before the séance occurred, the top stairway light blew out for the first time, which meant, if I remember correctly, everyone was using torches to illuminate everything.

We set up the pieces at the bottom of the stairway and five people sat in a circle around the board and put a finger on the cup. They claimed they were just letting them hover over the cup, but I have my doubts about that, as one of them as a trouble maker called Norman and he was there for a lark.

The first question they asked was ‘Are you Robert Rice?’ The cup appeared to jump slightly and moved towards the ‘yes’ sign, (and I am certain this was someone pushing the cup rather than any spirit being involved) but before they could continue, something happened.

The tingling which we had been feeling around the stairs suddenly manifested itself very strongly and I felt it over my entire body.

Then Norman suddenly yelled ‘Bullshit!’ and scrambled the Ouija board and fled up the stairs. He was spooked and scared, and though he never spoke of what happened, it was clear he must have felt or something something. And suddenly, everyone else was screaming and bolting up the stairs leaving just me, Shawn and another teen called Terry.

We exchanged notes and found we have all felt the same sensation.

Now, I don’t know if everyone was just agreeing with each other, or how many others felt what I felt, but I think everyone did certainly get pulled into the excitement and drama of it all, and whether they felt anything or not, they joined it. I don’t recall the general reaction afterwards, but people seemed to just carry on with what they were doing.

However, the experience was real enough for one of the boys named David (who actually was a student there) to get this large cross and place it at the bottom of the stairs. I was not aware he did this, but when I next went through the doors, the stairway felt clear as though the presence had left it.

Then I saw the cross. I called Shawn and without explaining anything, I asked him to come and see what he could feel. When he joined me, he asked how come there was nothing there.  I then showed him the crucifix.

The cross didn’t last very long, however, because one of the brothers who lived at the college found and remove it. The brothers then complained to our band masters, who in turn were sceptical and said that they couldn’t believe their ears and gave us a small lecture about leaving property alone.

So when it was removed, I didn’t know it had been. So as I headed to the showers, I once again felt the energy. I was puzzled why until I saw that the cross was gone.

The presence now felt angry, well at least to my mind, though I could have been imagining that. The feeling I was getting, though, was very strong. Then, abruptly, without any apparent reason,  the next morning it was gone.

As I said, at times it felt like I was walking through static electricity, and I do not that it’s presence did not match my expectations of it.

Next : The painted face

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Personal experiences: Part 1 – The presence on the stairway or don’t go there alone in the dark.

The dark staircase

This is a six part story about a paranormal event that occurred in January 1980. As usual, it’s told without any embellishments and according to a document that I had written after the event.

As a youth, my father insisted that I play in a brass band, and so I ended up playing that Euphonium. So every year I would end up going on a god awful band camp to play awful music that your family would end up politely listening to in the inevitable end of camp concert we’d subject them to.

Between January 13th and 26th, 1980, I attended one of those camps for The Victorian State Youth Band.

During this camp, quite a few unusual events occurred.

After the camp, I took it upon myself to write it all down, lest I forget. I’m glad I did, as I had forgotten most of it. What follows is my slightly edited version.

This camp was held at a Christian boarding school which, I recall correctly was called St. Patrick’s College in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia, which is a historical gold mining town.

There were two large rooms for sleeping in, and one of them led to a landing and a stair way.

When going down the steps that lead to the showers, a then friend of mine, (let’s call him Shawn), claimed that he got an uneasy feeling there and he didn’t like going down there at night.

At the time, I dismissed this as just being in his mind so he dared me to go down there myself. I did, and I did feel uneasy, but considering I did it in the dark, I would naturally feel that way.

There was nothing special about the staircase. Just two flights of steps winding from the boy’s dormitory down to the boy’s shower block.  As a rule, it was well lit, though the light bulbs kept on blowing. Five times in total, which is also something I have noticed occurring whenever there appears to be some type of spirit energy play going on. It was that, or just bad wiring!

Hanging on one of the walls, was also this abstract painting on the first landing. It was like a red angry face, and I didn’t like it. It gave me the creeps. Personally, if I had to put what happened down to anything, I would have to say that this entity was connected to the painting. In my experience, such things are possible, and it would certainly not be the last time I’d see something like that.

It wasn’t very long, though before we both felt a slight tingling in our mind every time we went through the double doors that lead to the stairs. It was a pricking sensation, like walking through a field of static electricity. It was almost as if some force was pushing against you. This gradually got stronger over a matter of days. It certainly didn’t take very long for it to become noticed by several of us.

Now, more than likely, this was the power of suggestion at work. I know what I felt (and considering I was always under some kind of psychic attack back then) I may have been more sensitive to it. I couldn’t speak for Shawn, though. I just accepted that he was feeling what I was feeling, and of course, everyone else joined in.

It’s like your tongue. You don’t feel it, even though it’s always there. But if you think about it, then you notice it, and somehow it doesn’t seem to fit into your mouth correctly.

So I certainly can’t discount that people focusing on feeling weird would not have produced something from their own minds.

It also could have been a group phenomenon brought on by suggestion and then our minds creating this.

What probably didn’t help was that I had shared a few of my own experiences, as I was want to do in my youth. I didn’t have many people I could talk to back then, and it was still all exciting and dramatic for me.

So, by taking about possessions and attacks, I’m sure I fueled the imagination of others.

Now, whether we attracted something or something was already there, or we made the entire thing up, I am not sure, but the things that followed were out of the tackiest Hollywood horror movie.

Interestingly enough, as I told the others about my experiences, these black beetles filled the dormitory and fell around my bed. Strangely enough, none fell around the stairway or the toilet area which was only meters away.

I’m not sure what type of beetles they were and if you asked me to identify one now, I wouldn’t be able to as there are a few varieties that are black, fly and swarm.

These ones apparently just dropped dead once they reached my bed, and I’ve no clue if that is normal behaviour or something that was unique.

I will note, though, this happened at two different times during the camp, the second time being after a group of boys had messed around with a ritual.

I’ve not actually seen anything of that nature occur before or since.

Next: The séance.