Obviously a boat, a train, or ship never had a soul, therefore by definition it cannot be a “ghost”. So ghosts are apparitions, but not all apparitions are ghosts. As Tom Ogdon explains it in The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Ghosts and Hauntings, “the appearance of an angel by your bedside would be an apparition, but you’d never call it a ghost.”

A Poltergeist, is a non-human spirit, known for it’s malicious and destructive nature. There have been some documented cases where poltergeist activity such as odd banging noises, moving objects, and strange fires occurred most commonly when a teenager was around, giving rise to the theory that this phenomenon may be related to the teen’s unknown and undisciplined telekinetic abilities.

What happens to our life-force after death is and has been a universal question throughout human existence. It’s right up there with another eternal question: “Why I am here?” Indeed most recorded civilizations have developed eleborate rituals to assure the safe passage of the soul to the next life. While beliefs about what happens to the soul varies across cultures, the one constant seems to be that something happens. Its the what that is still the greatest mystery.

The May issue of Ghosts of the Mid-Atlantic will feature a house I have been inside a dozen times over the years, but after interviewing the current owner and conducting a ton of research, I realized just how little I knew about the place and its neighborhood, where I had lived for many years. One thing I did know, however, was that this place was haunted. Yet it would take fifteen years before I learned that two other people had also had paranormal experiences there — and one of their stories, in particular, trumps all the frightening moments I had ever had in this deceptively peaceful house.

My research on this Maryland home turned up a snippet of local history, prominent persons, and delightful frights that I can’t wait to share with you.

Click here to get your issue or subscription today.

I can’t believe how challenging it is to reconcile the events of the last few weeks and complain about them. I mean, I have been overly positive lately that I can no longer enjoy my favorite past time, to post-game the negative externalities I mentioned a few posts back.

I am very well aware that despite my below the radar existence, there are a handful out there that seems to make me, myself and I’s actuality and subsistence, less of a moot point because they expect. With that said, I am obliged to indulge (if only this 7 year old, eat bulaga bred twit behind me would zip it up and quit imitating Korinna Sanchez like she’s on national TV) and take it from where I left off.

I was a bit disappointed upon learning that a highly regarded friend of mine, someone who is so close to me, would not give me the time of day to even read just one entry. Even after I begged this person to just critique my posts, I’m just too amateur I guess.

Though I’m still suffering from Post Human Centipede Traumatic Stress Disorder, I guess I am well enough already to “come to terms with my fears” psychoanalysis DX. The nightmares have dissipated and I no longer feel like I have to puke each time
I see anything with more than 4 legs or chance upon Gloria Estefan on MTV.

Well, friends, ….
Nice to be back!

Spring 2012 (12 episodes) (English title - Dusk Maiden of Amnesia) (more info)

Tasogare Otome has a really playful, refreshing attitude about how it tells its story.  Yuuko, the ghost president of the Seikyou High School occult club, doesn’t remember everything about her past, but she’s determined to enjoy her unlife as much as possible nonetheless. That’s where Teiichi comes in.  He’s a kindhearted young man, but perhaps a little over accommodating to Yuuko’s poltergeist pranks.  He also has the …fortunate?… distinction of being Yuuko’s object of affection, but perhaps it was inevitable because he’s the only one who can touch her.  This is a genius, nearly tangible way of creating empathy for Yuuko’s existence because of the very emotional response it generates to the concept of having only one person in the world you can be close to.  Where Tasogare Otome’s plot goes from here is up in the air, but it has already demonstrated very clearly that the setting concept is solid with a great air of mystery and some really likeable characters.  I particularly enjoyed how it started out showing everything from Momoe’s perspective to creatively establish that she can’t see or hear Yuuko and the naturalness of her reactions was made all the funnier when the scene was revisited from Teiichi’s point of view.  If Tasogare Otome continues this way, I expect great things are to come.

Not me. Even as a student my nights were an unrelenting spiral of solitude and despair; hours and hours of crushing loneliness punctuated only by an occasional fit of sobbing.

If, however (and it’s an ‘if’ bigger than Westminster Abbey), I ever did get invited to a social gathering of any kind, I could only dream of thinking of an excuse as brilliant and audacious as this for keeping the whole street awake.

Despite an ever increasing pile of wine and cider bottles building up in her back garden, young mother Leanne Fennell (pictured below dressed as an X-Rated Sgt Bilko) insisted that a poltergeist is responsible for the noise pollution rather than her party lifestyle. Ms Fennell claimed that the fun-loving ghoul would turn the music up to full volume when she was fast asleep in bed, and then throw cans of beer into the garden. What? It could happen.

Surprisingly, no one was buying this version of events and she was soon turfed out of her council house and ordered to pay a hefty fine.

Despite commendable defiance in the face of mounting evidence against her, Fennell let herself down by admitting on her Facebook page that “I love to party with my mates, well, the ones who can keep up with me that is.” Her defence, far from watertight to begin with, was shattered and Hull magistrates court, the highest legal power there is, found Fennell guilty of four breaches of her noise abatement notice.

The Metro reported that “Council Officers also seized four televisions, four DVD players and a CD player, which will now be destroyed”, probably in a manner so cold and brutal it would have made the SS seem like the Samaritans. Isn’t that a pretty pointless punishment anyway? It’s not like she won’t figure out how to make noise using other means. It’s like punishing a serial thief by hiding their swag bag.

Anyway, maximum points to Leanne for effort but this serves as a chilling reminder that the ghosts will always find you out.

And these games aren’t the kind that are really kid friendly. And they certainly aren’t games that keep objects safe, either.

Last week, I had posted about the rock that was flung VERY hard from INSIDE my home by unseen force and hands… or people. It whacked the metal of the screen door so hard, that it ricocheted off of the door, hit the wood door, then bounced off of it and landed right at the door way in between the two doors. To read that entry, CLICK HERE.

This morning another strange anomaly has happened. One that has not taken place in several months. The last occurrence in that spot happened somewhere in between Halloween and Thanksgiving of last year (2011).

It was an exact week since the rock incident. The only difference is that today’s problem happened this morning. The rock was thrown at around 4:30 in the afternoon of last Thursday.

Basically, this is what transpired in the dining room…

One of my salt/pepper shakers literally “flew” off of it’s shelf above the lizard’s cage and smashed all over my dining room floor.

There’s no conceivable way that this should have happened. If it fell, it would have hit the top of the cage, and bounced off, or have stayed atop the cage.

It was “thrown” off the shelf with so much force on to the floor, that it shattered…. Here we go again. Second thing from there to do that.

The shelf is firmly connected to the wall of the dining room, above my Bearded Dragon’s cage. You cannot access the back of the cage and the table that the cage sits on, being that both are right at, or extremely close to the wall.

And like I had already previously stated, the shaker never just tipped or fell over. If so, then it would HAVE TO land on Gobi’s cage (40 gal. long tank with screened top). Then from there, it would either come to rest on the top of the cage, or roll off (which is basically impossible with the cage being wide) and then hit the floor. Still, it would have maybe only cracked, but not all out shatter.

The salt shaker hit the wood floor with such a hard force, that it literally shattered in to small pieces. It’s as if someone got angry, grabbed the boot-shaped shaker and had thrown the shaker on to the floor very hard in a fit of rage and/or anger.

Thankfully, my kids (and the one child that stayed last night, being he is one of my son’s friends) were NOT in the dining room for breakfast when this took place. God only knows what could have happened.

‘Young mother evicted from her home blames loud party noise on poltergeist’

((Click title to read whole story))

I hope to god this is another typical Metro fictional story. However, I do believe this woman is stupid enough to claim this statement (look at the photo – the dress, the stance, the paw print breast tatoo, the poor back drop…).

Who You Gonna Call? The Council.

And it’s supposed to go to my oldest daughter. But having the vibes and chills from it in 2007 while out there, I already told my Dad that while it was stipulated in the will for his mother’s doll (antique) to go to her, that it will NOT me welcomed in to my home.

There is more than JUST a doll sitting on that dresser. It’s eyes followed me. I felt like I was being followed almost, even though it stayed stationary. Too much creep-factor for this chick to handle!

And I really don’t wish to be a spectator like the ones in the following video…. Especially with this kind of phenomenon.

Um…. Thanks. But I’ll pass on the possibility to have this happen. And in my own home of all places.

Here is a popular doll. Robert.

As you can see from these videos, it seems that spirits can take on forms within dolls. They supposedly can walk, open and close the dolls eyes and maybe even talk.

Dolls are vessels in which were initially made as to withhold and contain spirits of the dead. Or so, it is said, anyways. I believe that with haunting phenomena, anything is honestly possible. Because it’s all about energy and matter. Which is primarily what makes us.

We are energy and matter. And those two traits cannot be killed or destroyed. And I believe that those two things make what we deem as being our soul or spirit. It is what carries on of us after our physical being is gone from this earth.

What is YOUR take on the possibility of dolls being possessed by the dead? Is it a real possible equation in the mysteries of life, death, and the hereafter? Or is it that the old “dirt nap” is nothing but no brain activity, rotting away of your shell and that you have nothing to look forward to?

And can we come back again?… Reincarnation. Or regeneration of our spirit/soul. That will be the next subject I think we will tackle at a later date.

Leanne Fennell, 20, told neighbours that a ghost had been playing loud music and throwing empty beer cans into the garden of her home in Hull, East Yorks, when they complained about the noise.

Fennel has now been evicted from her council house after Hull City Council took her to court after ignoring a noise abatement order.

Council officers also seized four televisions, four DVD players and a CD player, which will now be destroyed, from the property in Wexford Road.

Furious neighbours had to put up with night after night of loud parties at Fennell’s home – which regularly ran on until the early hours of the morning.

Full story

[Original photography by J. E. Lattimer]

© 2012 J. E. Lattimer all rights reserved 

Το 1982 οι περισσότεροι θα το θυμούνται ως τη χρονιά της κυκλοφορίας της μεγάλης εισπρακτικής επιτυχίας του Steven Spielberg Ε.Τ. ο εξωγήινος. Την ίδια χρονιά όμως ο Spielberg θα κυκλοφορήσει μια από τις πιο συγκλονιστικές (και προσωπικά από τις αγαπημένες μου) ταινίες που έχουν γυριστεί γύρω από τον κόσμο των πνευμάτων. Το όνομα της ταινίας, Poltergeist.

Ο Steven Spielberg θα δώσει τα ηνία της σκηνοθεσίας του καινούργιου του πονήματος στον Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre). Για αυτή τη συνεργασία έχουν λεχθεί πολλά και γραφεί ακόμα περισσότερα. Οι φήμες ότι τελικά ο Tobe Hooper είχε διακοσμητικό ρόλο στο φιλμ κυριάρχησαν και όχι άδικα θα έλεγα καθώς κάθε καρέ της ταινίας θυμίζει υπερβολικά Spielberg. Ο Spielberg εκείνη τη περίoδο δεσμευόταν από την εταιρεία Universal παραγωγό εταιρεία του Ε.Τ να μην σκηνοθετήσει άλλη ταινία εκείνη τη περίοδο οπότε η παρουσία του Tobe Hooper απ’ ότι φαίνεται λειτούργησε σαν το άλλοθι που χρειαζόταν ο διάσημος σκηνοθέτης για να μπορέσει να σκηνοθετήσει το Poltergeist χωρίς να έχει νομικές κυρώσεις από την Universal. Σεναριογράφοι του έργου είναι ο Steven Spielberg μαζί με τον Michael Grais και τον Marc Victor. Ενώ τη μουσική επιμέλεια την αναλαμβάνει ο καταπληκτικός Jerry Goldsmith. Τα ειδικά εφέ που χρησιμοποιήθηκαν όπως είναι αναμενόμενο όταν έχεις να κάνεις με δημιουργία του μάστορα του είδους Steven Spielberg είναι για την εποχή τους καταπληκτικά. Στο cast της ταινίας ξεχωρίζει η παρουσία της μικρής Heather O’Rourke στο ρόλο της Carol Anne Freeling ενώ στους υπόλοιπους ρόλους έχουμε τον Craig T. Nelson στο ρόλο του πατέρα της μικρής Carol Anne, την Jobeth Williams στο ρόλο της μητέρας και την Zelda Rubinstein στο ρόλο της ερευνήτριας παραφυσικών φαινομένων.

Η υπόθεση έχει να κάνει με τη μετακόμιση της οικογένειας Freeling στο καινούργιο τους σπίτι το οποίο είναι χτισμένο εν αγνοία της οικογένειας Freeling πάνω σε ένα παλιό νεκροταφείο. Τα πνεύματα των νεκρών στοιχειώνουν την οικογένεια με κύριο θύμα τη μικρή Carol Anne. Η ταινία είναι γεμάτη από δράση και σασπένς. Σκηνές όπως η επίθεση του δέντρου στο δωμάτιο των παιδιών, η επικοινωνία της μικρής με τον κόσμο των πνευμάτων μέσω της τηλεόρασης ή το ξεθάψιμο των σκελετών του παλιού νεκροταφείου, έχουν μείνει χαραγμένες σε όσους έχουν παρακολουθήσει την ταινία. Οι ερμηνείες των ηθοποιών είναι καταπληκτικές, με τις υποκριτικές ικανότητες των μικρότερων σε ηλικία πρωταγωνιστών να κλέβουν τη παράσταση, ενώ η μικροκαμωμένη φιγούρα της ηθοποιού Zelda Rubinstein θεωρείται μέχρι και σήμερα από τις πιο cult παρουσίες.

Η ταινία όπως ήταν λίγο πολύ αναμενόμενο έσπασε τα ταμεία εισπρακτικά με αποτέλεσμα να ακολουθήσουν άλλες δύο συνέχειες. Έτσι το 1986 είχαμε το Poltergeist II: The Other Side με τη παρουσία όλου του cast από το πρώτο μέρος εκτός της μεγάλης αδερφής της οικογένειας Freeling. Η δράση στο νούμερο δύο μετατοπίζεται στο σπίτι της γιαγιάς της μικρής Carol Anne όπου έχει μεταφερθεί η οικογένεια των Freelings μετά τη καταστροφή του σπιτιού τους στο πρώτο μέρος. Σε αυτή τη συνέχεια μας παρουσιάζεται από τους δημιουργούς το πρόσωπο του κακού. Ο ηθοποιός Julian Beck παίζει τον κακό υποδυόμενος το ρόλο του Kane ενός ψευδοπροφήτη οι οπαδοί του οποίου βρήκαν τραγικό θάνατο εξαιτίας του. Τόσο η ψυχή του Kane όσο και των οπαδών του είναι παγιδευμένες κάπου μεταξύ του δικού μας κόσμου και του κόσμου μετά θάνατο. Η Carol Anne είναι για αυτούς το μέσο που μπορεί να τους βοηθήσει να συνεχίσουν την πορεία τους προς τον άλλο κόσμο. Σε αυτή τη συνέχεια αποδεικνύεται επίσης ότι η μικρή Carol Ann διαθέτει ιδιαίτερες ψυχικές ικανότητες, αποτέλεσμα κληρονομικού χαρίσματος που κουβαλάει από το σόι της μητέρας της. Το δεύτερο μέρος της σειράς Poltergeist συνεχίζει να προκαλεί ενδιαφέρον στο θεατή. Οι δυνατές σκηνές είναι και σε αυτή την ταινία αρκετές ενώ η φιγούρα του ηθοποιού Julian Beck στο ρόλο του κακού είναι χαρακτηριστική. Στη σκηνοθεσία της ταινίας έχουμε τον Brian Gibson ενώ στο σενάριο συνεχίζουν οι σεναριογράφοι του πρώτου μέρους Michael Grais και Marc Victor. Τη μουσική επένδυση της ταινίας συνεχίζει να την υπογράφει ο Jerry Goldsmith. Η τρίτη συνέχεια της σειρά μας έρχεται το 1988. Σκηνοθέτης είναι ο Gary Sherman o οποίος έχει συμμετοχή και στο σενάριο της ταινίας μαζί με τον Brian Taggert. Από το αρχικό cast έχει παραμείνει σε αυτό το τρίτο και τελευταίο μέρος μόνο η Heather O’Rourke και η Zelda Rubinstein. Το υπόλοιπο cast της ταινίας αποτελείται από τον Tom Skerritt (Alien) και την Nancy Allen (Robocop). Στη συγκεκριμένη ταινία η μικρή Carol Anne μένει πια μαζί με τον θείο της σε ένα ουρανοξύστη οι χώροι του οποίου θα αποτελέσουν το σκηνικό για την τελική σύγκρουση με το πνεύμα του Kane. Η ταινία δεν πήρε καλές κριτικές και πήγε μέτρια από πλευράς εισπράξεων. Καθ’ όλη τη διάρκεια της ταινίας η μικρή πρωταγωνίστρια Heather O’Rourke ήταν άρρωστη. Μια λάθος διάγνωση των γιατρών για το τι ακριβώς είχε θα έχει σαν αποτέλεσμα το γλυκό κοριτσάκι να χάσει τη μάχη με την αρρώστια της σε ηλικία μόλις 12 ετών, το Φεβρουάριο του 1988. Η είδηση του θανάτου της μικρής έπεσε σαν βόμβα στην παραγωγή και σε όλο τον κόσμο που την είχε γνωρίσει μέσα από την ταινία Poltergeist. Ο θάνατός της όμως δεν ήταν ο μόνος που σημάδεψε τη σειρά ταινιών Poltergeist, καθώς το 1982 η συμπρωταγωνίστρια της στη πρώτη ταινία Dominique Dunne που υποδύονταν τη μεγάλη της αδερφή στραγγαλίζεται από το σύντροφο της ξεκινώντας έτσι και τη “κατάρα” που πλανιόταν πάνω από τις ταινίες Poltergeist.

Η σειρά ταινιών Poltergeist ακούγεται έντονα ότι δεν έχει τελειώσει και ότι σύντομα θα έχει είτε κάποιο remake είτε κάποια συνέχεια. Το σίγουρο πάντως είναι πως δύσκολα θα καταφέρει η καινούργια παραγωγή να πιάσει το κλίμα και την ατμόσφαιρα των ταινιών της δεκαετίας του ΄80 αλλά και να ξεφύγει από τη σφραγίδα που έχει μπει στα συγκεκριμένα φιλμ από την παρουσία της αδικοχαμένης Heather O’Rourke. Για μένα προσωπικά αυτή η σειρά ταινιών τελείωσε με το θάνατο της μικρής.

Poltergeist | Poltergeist II: The Other Side | Poltergeist III

Πηγή

Don’t you wish you had as good of friends as these guys are to each other?

1000 Things We Hate #____ Ghosts?

Fuck no, ghosts are awesome.  Poltergeist was the best movie ever!

It hit so hard, that it ricocheted and hit the wood door, bounced off, and landed right at the door way.

The activity happened just over an hour ago…

That rock came from thin air. It was one from my walk way area that goes by the kitchen area of the house, leading to the main front driveway.

No one, and I mean NO ONE threw it. Not inside, nor from the outside. And it happened so fast, I really didn’t even see the rock go past me.

I had a cousin here at the time, and even she vouched for my son, who can do things on the sly, and stated that NO ONE, not even her boy cousin threw the rock.

Plus, it was thrown from the inside, not the outside of the house. And there was no one else but myself in the house when it happened.If anyone tried to sneak in to the house, be it from the basement, or from the kitchen, they would be heard. The stairs creek. And the kitchen door squeaks. And my kids are well… not the silent types.

The occurrence was so quick, I didn’t even know what hit my screen door until it fell to the ground at the doorway.

Great! I’ve gone from shadows, corner-of-the-eye apparitions, voices calling out or laughing, to poltergeist activity.

Next?!

I’ve found the heavy burden of not breaking yet another chain letter internet meme thrust upon me by the most inconsiderate Audrey Goshorn.

She did this despite my dire explanation about the consequences of breaking chain letters.

Families torn apart.

Civilizations collapsing.

Alien overlords landing.

Mayan prophecies, no matter how objectively stupid, coming true.

I don’t need that kind of responsibility right now. I’m several episodes behind on Awake and Castle, dammit.

But since it is the fate of the entire world resting on my shoulders…

1. What snack (if any) do your prefer when writing?

Something I can eat without using my hands. Or having to move my eyes too far from the screen. So, grapes hand-fed to me by adoring coed interns.

The missus feels threatened by this mode of snacking, for some reason, so it has been some time since I’ve been ‘allowed’ to eat while writing, Most distressing…

2. What is your next major writing goal?

I could say, get my second Marlowe book through the last round of edits, but that would be a lie. In all honesty? My next major writing goal is to start writing again.

Life hasn’t been handing me lemons, it’s been firing them at me, with extreme prejudice, through a modified super-sonic potato cannon.

While I admit that this is extremely inconvenient, I do have to give props to Life for the off-the-charts awesome looking super-sonic potato cannon. As soon as I’m done dodging this one, I’m gonna get me one of those.

But weapons envy aside, until someone comes up with a high-speed lemonade mixer/Kevlar™ catcher’s mitt, I’m keeping my head down and my butt in the fox hole.

3. How would you feel about your book being made into a movie?

Meh. So many of my books have been made into movies.

Oh, wait, you mean movies not just in my head? I’d be bouncing off the walls, screaming my head off, and then, when I found out they didn’t cast Stephen Fry as the voice of House, I’d get very, very sullen.

Yes, I know, Hugh Laurie plays Dr. House on the TV show. My House is a different House, and in my head, he’s voiced by Hugh Lau-, er, I mean, Stephen Fry. If that confuses you, join the club!

4. What is your dream writing space?

Bomb shelter with a secret entrance, grainy black-and-white video surveillance of the outside, and wall-to-wall bookcases stuffed with survival guides.

The only source of illumination, besides my hamster-powered OLPC computer? A naked bulb swinging from a cord, flickering as I laugh maniacally at my computer screen. Flickering because it’s a mercury-infested compact fluorescent, mind you, not some energy-sapping incandescent bulb.

This is a modern writing lair.

Did I mention my chair rests on a trap door over a pit of disinterested cats? A trap door with a fidgety locking mechanism? I know, it doesn’t sound very horrible, but I’m deathly allergic to cats, so it adds a sense of drama, not to mention urgency, to my writing.

I’ve found there is no better way to keep your book’s pacing on track than the threat of plummeting into a mound of hungry yet still disinterested cats.

5. Where do you go to scope out ideas for characters and dialogue?

I go to the dark places in my mind. Sometimes I bring a flashlight, but I can never get it through my ear canal. But flashlight technology is getting smaller, so it’s only a matter of time. Until then, these trips cause major headaches.

I also go through a lot of gauze.

A lot of gauze.

Actually, I get the most interesting ideas hanging out with friends, or reading people’s twitter feeds and blogs. But I can’t act on those ideas, or the people who inspired them might get the wrong idea about me.

I’m already on thin ice with most of them, and can’t risk any more trouble.

6. What are you doing to become a better writer?

I’m trying to get back into the habit of reading an excessive amount of books per year. I’ve recently managed to claw my way up to ‘a non-zero, but still unimpressive’ number.

It would help if my kids didn’t grab at my books and eReader. Or color in the books and on my eReader.

My Nook Touch is now a Nook Touch Color. But not in the good way.

7. Do you outline before you start a novel?

Yes. I used to be a pantser, but found that writing Book 2 in my Marlowe and the Spacewoman series, Balloons of the Apocalypse, went amazingly well with an outline to guide me. The damn thing practically wrote itself.

So yeah, I’m totally an Outline Man™ now.

8. What was the last book you read?

A Princess Of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Definitely the sort of book to appeal to a teenage boy, but I still enjoyed it.

Hmm, what does that say about me? I’m young at heart?

Speaking of which, John Carter was a fun movie. More people should go see it.

9. What is your biggest distraction when you write and how do you deal with it?

The internet. And my writing groups. Especially my online writing groups. We totally don’t stay focused on writing when we meet. So far, I have not dealt with this very well because…

…as mentioned above, I haven’t been writing lately due to that lemon-hucking bastard, Life.

If I had any will power, I’d quit Humanity cold turkey, build myself a shack in the woods, and mail bombs to academics write the next twelve Great American Novels.

Scratch that, why limit myself? The next twelve Great Human Novels.

I want my books to be the ones our alien overlords read to understand us after wiping us out. I want to be the author our alien overlords point to when they tell the cloned-from-frozen-samples new humans, “This, this is why we brought your species back. Live up to these books and we will make you gods!”

Sadly, we’ll be extinct again six years later. No one can live up to my characters. Even the flawed characters.

And the aliens’ language is very complex, and the humans won’t understand the instructions.

Self-fulfilling prophecy, really.

10. What is your favorite sentence you have ever written?

When French gourmet chefs go insane, they’re exiled to Belgium.

But that’s a short sentence, so how about one more?

Even Marlowe felt himself moved by the graceful, haunting sounds arising from Finch’s throat, rich notes that were neither words nor instruments, but something a thousand times more effective than either.

11. What should the title of my YA paranormal romance be?

Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret.  I’ve Only Got Poltergeist For You

No, I will not apologize for that title. You asked, so suck it up.

Time to spread the pain around. You guys wanna lob flaming lemons at me, in the form of chain letter internet memes, well, then, right back at ya!

These questions are directed at poor Marj (because I’m always hitting innocent bystanders while targeting the guilty) and Kit and Audrey and, what the heck, Anne Marie and Tamela too. Now I’ll see who reads my blog amongst you, and who doesn’t!

Muhahahaha!

It most certainly is NOT because we discovered A Song of Ice and Fire and Skyrim simultaneously. The nerdiness of that possibility is too overwhelming to consider.

Anyway, the pirates eventually tired of my Jerry Lewis and moved on, leaving us to continue our countdown of the scariest movies of all time. We’re so close now… we may even finish before next Halloween.

20. Dawn of the Dead (2004)

The hostage: For pure scary, the remake takes the cake. The little girl crouching animal-style and running toward Sarah Polley punched me in the brainbone the first time I saw it; I realized immediately that these zombies were bad-ass, and social commentary was taking a backseat to “holy shit, I can’t outrun this zombie!!!!” I love the original and concede it is a better film. The remake suffers from a few shaky performances and the commentary it makes is a tad unsteady, but the overall tone of the flick, especially if you stick around after the credits, takes bleak’s baby sister and smilingly chokes it in front of their mom. And how messed up is it that the unrepentant douchebag is Phil Dunphy? (My head assplode.) The gore rivals the original and fast zombies freak me out more than shamblers.

The cinephile: I understand that there could be outrage over this being rated as higher on the list that the Romero version – I think an argument could be made for either. But for me, Zack Snyder’s remake ekes out a win for that opening sequence. From the moment Sarah Polley’s bedroom door creaks open until she crashes into the tree, I am on the edge of my seat. Snyder ably captures the chaos and confusion such a scenario would incite, as panicked and desperate people put self-survival above all else. Even after Polley escapes the horror of watching her husband die (only to have him revive and viciously attack her), she is faced with a frenzied and terrifying world in which the entire social order has broken down overnight. Yeah, the fast zombies help rev up some tension, but for me, the picture above illustrates perfectly why zombies are horrifying – slow or fast: they get you in the end because there are just too many of them.

19. Poltergeist (1982)

The hostage: There was discussion on this one, but I think it earns this rank because it’s scary in a couple of ways: there is a supernatural force completely messing up your life, and the strain of it on your family is starting to do as much damage as the supernatural threat. The Shining is a film that plays this card even better, in that the dirt beneath the surface was there before the ghosts even came into the picture. We see the perfect family, the American Dream, unravel to an extent that the players start to eat each other. That’s creepy, and the T.V. tried to eat their kid. I must say, however, that any native ghosts that Whitey builds a house on top of have every right to be pissed off.

The cinephile: There’s a doll… that’s also a clown… and it’s UNDER THE BED. ‘Nuff said.

The hostage: Agreed! Fuck clowns and especially that clown!

18. Shutter (2004)

The hostage: Let’s clear this up, Pacey is not in this movie. Pacey is in the piece of shit remake of the same name (though Pacey was decent in said piece of shit). It’s really too bad that the female “spirit” with stringy black hair has become copied to the point of being cliché, because the first run of those movies are incredibly scary. The rip-offs sometimes lead us to forget that. The slow and ominous build in this flick is so patient, but not boring like in The Grudge. The build up to the reveal is perfectly paced and the closing image is terrifying – AND the asshole deserves it (which makes it awesome).

The cinephile: This is not just a scary movie, it’s a great horror movie. It is filled with surprising moments of terror, often involving photographs and photography, very much a theme of the film. Much like mirrors, photographs have great potential to terrify; I think it’s related to our expectation of how a photo behaves. We expect a photo to be stationary (much like we expect a mirror to accurately reflect what we see), so the unnatural action of a person or object in a picture moving is scary in and of itself. If you add frightening images to the mix, then you’re cooking with gas. Shutter, while driven by an interesting and tight narrative, is most successful in creating dreadful imagery – particularly the final shot. *shudder* (word play!)

17. Event Horizon (1997)

The hostage: AHHHHHH! I need to let you all in on my psyche a little, in that I have always had a thing for redheads. Then I saw this flick at 19 and the eyeless redhead was seared into the frontal goop of my brainbone (both clinical terms). The next time I saw Angie Everhart, SHE DIDN’T HAVE EYES! It was only for a second, but it was real and the first of many psychotic breaks. This movie is not good, in fact it’s pretty terrible, but the ghosts and scenes of “hell” are terrifying. Wrecked me.

The cinephile: This, on the other hand and as pointed out by the hostage, is NOT a great movie. I’m not even sure I’d call it a good movie. However, there is something inherently scary about one’s worst nightmares playing out in reality – which ties in to our fear of madness, in which we have no control over our own minds. In addition, these nightmares are particularly effective on-screen. Sam Neill’s not losing sleep over the thought of losing his house and possessions in a gambling spree. No, his nightmare has to involve the gouging out of eyes. Blech. I wrote earlier on how creepy eyes are… empty eye sockets trump eyes every time.

16. The Grudge (2004)

The hostage: This was another film that needed discussion between Cruella and I, but I can agree with the points she makes. My knock is that it plays a trick Paranormal Activitys live on: you walk in knowing ghosts are coming, the pacing slows down to a crawl and you became frightened of the horrible thing that is about to happen. Having said that, it’s effectively creepy in this movie. It just makes the thing a bit of a slug to sit through. The scary stuff is really scary, but the rest is just kind of boring.

The cinephile: If you’re wondering, yes, I do have the good grace to feel shame for how much this film terrifies me. Because let’s face it, The Grudge is not a good movie. Characters are paper-thin, there’s barely a plot of which to speak, and the pacing is terrible. Take out the moments for which my heart is in my throat (basically, any time that horrifying woman is on-screen), and this movie is just boring. But the visual image of the murdered woman just makes my skin crawl. It’s everything about her – the broken crawl, the rattling gasp, the fact that SHE’S IN MY FREAKIN’ BED! I honestly couldn’t sleep the night I saw The Grudge; I kept imagining her crawling up my sheets. Even looking for an image to attach above gave me the willies, and I have to scroll up or down so that the picture isn’t lingering on my computer screen.

15. 28 Days/Weeks Later (2002/2007)

The hostage: The first seven or eight minutes of Weeks: the shot of this endless wave of fast zombies chasing a terrified Robert Carlyle is haunting, and the choice he has to make in the moment? It’s unfortunate because both of these movies are terrifying in the world they create, but both movies are flawed in such simple ways that I remember them as worse than they are (I’m looking at you, “I’ll just back this car over the pile of wrecked cars” in Days). Regardless, they are scary as hell and share a bleakness with the Dawn of the Dead remake that is gut-wrenching. We had to make a deal that there would be no hard feelings if we had to make that choice, but I’m trapped in a bunker so that might be trading up (sigh).

The cinephile: Hmmm, this is a total cheat. These films are quite different and should be considered separately, but luckily this is our site and you can eat it. (I’m drunk with power.) 28 Days Later is better at creating the feeling of complete isolation – of literally being the last man on earth. It also looks into the human monster; the terrifying notion that not only must we be on guard for zombies, but that we cannot trust other people as society disintegrates. However, 28 Weeks Later has several sequences that stop my heart completely. I can think of few scenes in modern horror with the urgency of that opening number. As Robert Carlyle runs for the boat, and streams of zombies appear over the hillside, I felt completely hopeless – as though there was no point for him to keep running, because how could he possibly escape that horde? The second film is great at forcing you to face ugly questions about survival as well. Would you shut the door on your spouse if a zombie ran directly at you, likely killing him/her but protecting yourself? Could you shoot innocent civilians if it was the only way to ensure all the zombies were dead? I’m just glad I don’t have to make those decisions. And hopefully never will.

14. The Blair Witch Project (1999)

The hostage: See my earlier comment about The Grudge, because this movie is one of the pioneers. The thing is they did such a good job of keeping it quiet until just before the flick came out and really used the internet well in selling the con (remember when the internet was relatively new, and how hard it was to get quality pornography?). Again, the trick doesn’t make the movie less scary, it just allows me to feel superior while it scares the hell out of me. The acting is just bad enough to believe it’s real and what happens when you’ve been following the creek for three days and still haven’t found civilization? I’d be pretty scared. Pretty soon we’re dreading the dusk as much as the characters, which just feeds into the next day’s bickering and then one dude suddenly disappears; gone, without blood, or screams, or a corpse, or a big killer with a mask that you can actually fight (as long as you didn’t smoke weed, drink, or have sex). That’s fucking scary yo.

The cinephile: I began this list with a preamble, explaining that the hostage and I will always find what you don’t see scarier than what you do. The Blair Witch Project is the ultimate example of that form of horror. You don’t actually see anything in the film. You hear spooky stories and legends, some rustling in the woods, and people reacting as though they’ve seen something scary, but the viewer sees nothing. By relying on the realism of the found-footage style and the terror of the people involved, Myrick and Sanchez are able to build a feeling of dread without overtly showing anything on-screen. And let’s face it – whatever the witch did while she made the children stand in the corner, what you imagine is most likely worse than what the writers could come up with.

The hostage: Fuck Cloverfield.

13. Candyman (1992)

The hostage: I love this movie! Quick, think of a movie with solid acting, great pacing, a twist on a classic ghost story while making an effective social comment on racism and the fresh scars of slavery; it’s a pretty short list isn’t it? There are some concerns with the writing and some of the CGI is rough, but I think this is a good movie. You may not agree with that statement, but I hope you can agree that this movie is scary. A supernatural killer with a justified grudge and a fucking hook for a hand that you can never really get away from is creepy, and the gore is top-notch.

The cinephile: This high-ranking is no doubt affected by the zeitgeist of my childhood. I grew up in the age of Bloody Mary, and my friends and I concocted all sorts of tales of what she would do to you if you had the seeds to perform the most terrifying of tasks: say her name in a darkened bathroom three times. The horror! I still would have trouble if you asked me to do it today. And man, Bloody Mary has nothing on Candyman. His brutal legend, his bloody hook, the damage that hook does… all effectively creepy. Funnily enough though, as a budding teen, it wasn’t the legend of Candyman that scared me the most – it was the reality of life in Cabrini Greens. I became obsessed with the idea that a homicidal madman could crawl through the back of my medicine cabinet and slaughter my family (nevermind the fact that we lived in a house, and the back of our medicine cabinet faced our hallway. Kids). As scary as the nightmare was, it just can’t compete with what some people live with on a daily basis.

12. In the Mouth of Madness (1994)

The hostage: I feel like Philip K. Dick should have written this movie, because only he writes a mind-fuck this good. The line between what is real and what is not is played so well that the rest of the movie can’t live up to it. There have been a number of flicks that have played with it: A Scanner Darkly has a drug that once ingested hooks you forever and you can’t believe anything you see or hear again; a neat Canadian flick called Pontypool tried language as the means of passing a psychosis inducing virus; and the Matheson novel I Am Legend (I hate Will Smith) played with vampires as the next evolution and that the last man “surviving” is a serial killer of the new majority (and who’s right?). This movie has a book that drives you mad, and the images of madness and slipping reality are so effective it’s a shame the rest of the thing is kind of a mess.

The cinephile: As I mentioned before, madness is terrifying. In the Mouth of Madness delves into freaky questions about what it means to be sane… and could you suddenly become insane if that definition were to change? If all of a sudden, the masses were to start hearing voices, would those who can’t be ruled as crazy? Ultimately though (and as is the case in many horror films), it comes down to one horrifying scene for me: the man on the bike, who gives my willies the willies. What is it about him? The weird time/direction blur? The effective (yet obviously fake) make-up? The idea of youth trapped inside a shriveled frame? The assertion “he won’t let me out”? No, I think for me, it’s the look he gives Styles before gliding away on his bike; that empty, dead, hollow look. Gives me chills… and not in a good way.

11. Paranormal Activity 1/2/3 (2007/2010/2011)

The hostage: I’ve mentioned the trick, you know the trick, but damn if the trick doesn’t make me squirm when I sit down to watch one of these things. I swear to god the pan rack in the second film swayed the entire movie, and I’m sitting there like an idiot going “is the ghost doing that?” I don’t especially like these movies, in that the characters deserve to die for responding to a clearly real threat instead of lying to one another and sneaking in Ouija boards. You’re a skeptic, cool, but something made your wife hover over your bed for three hours and it was a little unsettling for me to watch, you should get her cat scanned or something. Having said all of that, they scare me.

The cinephile: Now this, I feel is cheating less because these films are all basically the same experience. And I know the complaints, I’ve heard them before, “the whole movie is just waiting for something to happen.” EXACTLY. So little is shown (yet so much is heard), that your brain is forced to imagine all the horrible possibilities while you wait in anticipation. But then, even though what is shown is so miniscule (the door frame moved an inch!), you still get the rush of adrenaline – the thrill of seeing something unexplainable – and that’s scary. I’d honestly give the scariest scene to the third flick: Dustin and Katie playing Bloody Mary in the bathroom. In this instance, it isn’t the anticipation, or even what you see, that is so effective. It’s in Dustin’s voice – you can hear the terror in this grown man’s voice, and it gets under your skin in a way that what is shown on-screen just can’t.

To be continued (sooner, this time)…

K and the hostage

See also:

A Prelude to the List: On the Subjectivity of “Scary”

50 Scariest Horror Movies: Part 1

50 Scariest Horror Movies: Part 2

50 Scariest Horror Movies: Part 3

50 Scariest Horror Movies: Part 5 (Top Ten!)

From the playful to the horrific manifestations of your worst nightmares, Poltergeist has a ghost to suit every occasion. Directed by Tobe Hooper and written and co-produced by one Mr Steven Spielberg,  this instant classic hit the silver screens back in 1982 and has been terrifying teens for the past three decades.

Set in Cuesta Verde, a very boring, middle-class, identical housing development in California (those sorts of places really creep me out), the story focuses on the Freeling family, a completely average, stereotypical family, nothing at all like the sort you would expect to have such nasty goings on at home (well…at least not in the 80s). Steve and Diane Freeling (Craig T. Nelson and Jobeth Williams) are happily married and financially comfortable, with three children to call their very own. Their eldest is teen Dana (Dominique Dunne), followed by pre-teen son Robbie (Oliver Robins) and finally we have little Carol Anne (Heather O’Rourke), who is just 10 years old.

It isn’t long before things start getting weird, but to my delight, and Diane’s apparently, the family is quite amused by the fact that she can get the ghost/s to move bits of furniture around. I, for one, would not be laughing my head off if my kitchen chair was sliding up and down the kitchen willy nilly. The fun and games soon lose their charm when Carol Anne gets sucked into the television set and a barrage of ‘shadows’ come flying out in her place. (You can be sure no kid sat near to or touched their TV for a good while after seeing that).

When things get too much and toys start flying around the children’s bedroom in a tornado, the Freelings decide it is time to bring in the services of psychologist Dr Lesh (Beatrice Straight), who calls for the help of the weird and wonderful parapsychologist Tangina (Zelda Rubinstein) in order to retrieve the Freeling’s beloved daughter.

Poltergeist, though its plot is simple, is effective, intelligent and highly enjoyable. It has all the charm of an 80s horror, the brilliant of a Spielberg production and all the scares of a good ghost story – let us scarcely even mention that horrifying clown, which haunted my nightmares for the remainder of my teens years.

The camera work and lighting come together to create the perfect eerie atmosphere (very Carpenter indeed) and whilst some parts of the film do make me chuckle (I’m sure not all of them were meant to), I get a chill down my spine every time I watch it.

The acting of the cast as a whole is superb and just a touch hammy which always does well with me, but Tangina, played by the delightful Zelda Rubinstein, is my absolute favourite. She is witty, amusing and absolutely bonkers, yet still directly provides a few of the film’s core scares.

As a firm fan of retro horror, Poltergeist ticks all my boxes, and whilst it is a far cry from the likes of the super jumpy and slightly try-too-hard Paranormal Activitys of modern day, I recommend that all fans of supernatural horror give this one a go, if they haven’t already – you will enjoy it.

Score: 444/666

It is a grey, dark windy, rainy day south of Seattle.  I am not in the city, I am out toward the country in a very quiet development with evergreen trees, I am talking frogs croak in the morning.  This is very woodsy.  A train rolls past every now and again that I can see from my front door, it vibrates the house.  Dark, quiet, creepy day.  So back to Elysia telling me something is in the walls…

A few minutes after I text Elysia, a train rolls by so I am thinking to myself about how stupid I am…there must have been some vibration from the train that came in advance (I was totally trying to make this logical because my dryer was moving ok?!).  I text Elysia my thoughts and we agree that perhaps that was the answer, something to do with the train.  NOPE!!!  Several minutes later the pounding starts again.  Zack started shaking like a leaf and stood at the laundry room entrance crying at me.  NO! NO! NO!  Not ok on any level whatsoever!  When the dog starts shaking and crying and has never done that before and some strange knocking is going on SOMETHING ISN’T RIGHT!!!  I was in the middle of “lock me up and throw away the key” and Elysia starts having a birthday text discussion with me about her plans.  I was thinking, I am going to be sucked into the dryer kind of like Carol Ann  got sucked into the television and my kid is discussing her 22nd birthday plans.  Nice.

Time to get real.  I turned on my iPhone video camera and started filming.  Nothing.  I stood in my laundry room talking to the air for a few minutes and making stupid jokes.  Nothing.  Finally I said, “If you can hear me, knock.”  BAM! BAM! BAM!  ”AHHHHHHHGGGGGGG!”  I got it on video! I was running all over like a lunatic and the pounding kept going.  I come off sounding like the chick on the Blair Witch Project when she is dripping snot off her nose.  Wow!  I can’t even believe it.  So what is the noise?  I have lived in my home almost three years and this is a new thing.  The only thing that I can come up with is that it was windy today and that perhaps wind went up the outside vent for the dryer causing the flaps inside to bang???    But how could that have actually vibrated a heavy front-loading dryer?  Strange though how it seemingly responded a couple of times to my voice and scared my dog?!  We have had higher winds than this out here and this hasn’t happened!  How could it have vibrated an adjacent wall?  Hmmmm….

From now on I am going to be writing down the time of day and the weather conditions.  I am an analytical thinker, I will go through every possibility before deciding that my house is haunted.  Unless of course something drags me down the steps, that pretty much sums it right up.

Getting My Creep On!

~Beth

Non-interactive Hauntings – A haunting of place or residual haunting does not interact with the surrounding world and in fact they are unaware it even exists. It is unclear if they have any type of awareness at all. They may be more like video recordings, playing over and over within a particular place. Sometimes these energies are captured or amplified by certain geological quirks, e.g. they appear more often in areas with high quantities of quartz present.

Poltergeist – Thanks to pop culture, this is probably the most famous type of ghost. The word poltergeist is German for “noisy ghost” and they are traditionally thought of a mischievous or playful spirits. They are known for moving objects, making noises, and playing pranks. While they are capable of posing a threat, possibly by tripping someone, or tossing objects around, they’re usually harmless. This type of haunting may be caused by some kind of low level spirit (never lived as a human), and some believe that it may represent the ghosts of dead dogs, cats, or other wild animals. Other theories link it with increased telekinetic energy manifest by stressed teenagers or even women experiencing menopause. Often when the stressful situations are eliminated, these anomalies cease. Manifestations are extremely rare in this type of haunting.

Elementals – These are considered to be low level spirits which inhabit the air, sea, earth, or fire. They appear in numerous forms, usually to gain interest or get an emotional reaction. During the Renaissance, many people believed that elemental were far more common than ghosts. This type of apparition usually appears in less settled areas – a newly built house in the woods for instance. This type of location wouldn’t be susceptible to a traditional haunting, because no one had lived or died there, but on some occasions, spiritual manifestations are present. They may break dishes, create loud noises or other disturbances and are sometimes believed to be protecting their natural environment and trying to get the homeowners to leave their territory.

Ghosts of the Living – This type of aparition is rare, but has been reported. They are usually interactive, but believed to be the spiritual projection of a living person which can appear suddenly, even great distances away from the person’s physical body. Some describe this phenomena as an out-of-body-experience, but it remains unclear how or why it takes place. Related to this experience is another type of apparition – the spirit of a dying person who appears to family members just before his/her death.

Inanimate Manifestations – Possibly the hardest to explain is the inanimate manifestation, since ghosts are usually though of as being some type of spirit. This manifestation includes sounds or appearances of objects, vehicles like trains or boats, or even battles. Since these objects don’t have a spirit or consciousness of their own, it is unclear what could cause them to appear. Possibly the consciousness of people associated with them fuels these appearances or they represent some kind of imprint on time and space.

Who Am I...continued

Okay folks, remember I said in an early post that you might have to suspend your singular, logical, linear mind sometimes, especially in relation to me and my messages? Well, it’s time. I’ve spent the majority of my life concealing many things about myself. Hell, had to since the little people do know already has gained me a reputation as being a little odd. Which I’m okay with but because I wanted to save my Children any embarrassment or any violations to their privacy, I left it at a little odd. This past year I decided it was time to come out of the closet…but with a pseudonym. Again for my Children’s benefit not because I give a hehank what people think of me. This wish to protect my children has also kept me from being comfortable about getting published. I’ve always been a writer. After talking with my beautiful Daughter who is very much a private person…she felt the best thing was a pseudonym. So she helped me with that when she came here to Florida to visit for a while. She also gave me a two-week crash course in all things internet. By the way, I’m not near as odd as my sweet knowing Daughter of eighteen-years but that’s another post. Then in her loving support of my decision to speak my truth after some fifty years…she said she was okay about it regardless whether I used a pseudonym or not. So I talked with my monk of a Son of twenty-four years about it and…like my Daughter said He could care less what people think anyway. My thirty-three year old serious-minded Son is rather proud of my oddness and is a little odd himself, so no problem there. So all in all, though my Children are okay with my oddness (psychology would probably call it schizophrenia) I’m still gonna try to protect them from the judgement and condemnation so prevalent in a world which abhors anything dissimilar to the tried and true.

So a little background…from a very young age I could see things and hear things that other people couldn’t. Instead of my Mama telling me it was all just my imagination she just told me to be careful who I told. She told me some people just wouldn’t understand. I found out why she told me this since my Mama passed away many years ago and I realized she was a little odd herself. Passed on her genes I guess. So I will start with the minor and lead to the major.

Too many pertinent incidences to outline them all so I will try to limit my long-windiness a bit and try to summarize. I remember things in a photographic/videographic montage sort of way. I remember my birth in this way. Mama decided to deliver me as a home-birth cause the doctor had pissed her off when she got pregnant for the ninth time. This was in nineteen-sixty. She had my aunt (by paternal marriage) to assist in the birth along with my aunt’s sister. Some who seem to get freaked-out over my weird ability to remember, especially of my birth, would say I heard people talk about it. Well that’s not true as no one talked about such things in my family. I vividly recall as I took my first breath upon exiting the birth canal hearing my aunt’s sister literally scream she has the eyes of satan. Now why she said that I don’t know but her statement has seemed to follow me a bit throughout my life. Even, or maybe especially so, within my bible-belt kin.

We were the typical proud but poor south Georgia family. I was extremely bonded with my Mama, to the point that older siblings kinda resented it. I talked early, I walked early and I reasoned early. I never was a child. When as a toddler I spotted a dark form kinda like a cat but not, large, scraggly and slothful, it looked at me in a way that scared my little child’s mind slam to death. I was sitting in our living room beside my Mama, we were watching the Red Skelton show which my Daddy loved so much, when I saw it. I leaned over to her and quietly told her what I had seen. She shushed me and took me out to the kitchen and asked me to tell her again what I had seen. I told her, she never questioned the validity of what I said. She muttered oh my and proceeded to tell me I had the sight. Not understanding what she was talking about I asked what she meant. She said that she didn’t want to scare me. But I insisted. She said I have the sight to see the reaper. Still not getting it I let it go as my Father walked into the kitchen. The next morning I heard my maternal Grandfather’s canned shuffling walk on our front porch, I ran to open the door for him. Just as I pulled the door open he fell across the threshold. He died instantly. Well you know what they say about southern superstition…and he was old so… Both would be true if it had only been the one time. It wasn’t. Kinda heavy stuff for a little one. Of course I went straight to my Mama and her look said it all. No questions needed.

Then She began to visit me. Didn’t matter what time of day nor night I would see her quietly standing in her beautiful white dress. She always smiled at me. Not the toothy grin but a Mona Lisa type. She never spoke. Just appearing here and there. Well she scared the hell outa me, even after Mama told me she meant me no harm. When she would appear at my bedside I would scream at her to go away and run into Mama’s room. Mama always just held the cover up for me to crawl in beside her and hugged me tight. She had long quit trying to reassure me that the Lady in White meant no harm and was indeed a guardian of sorts. I was not fearful of her in the daytime hours, it was only when night became inky black.

I was probably the most fearful child ever born…well no…that dubious honor goes to my Daughter. Anyway, there were other mass-less entities I saw. Some like the Lady I do not believe ever was embodied, who or what exactly was she…I don’t know. Bunches of theories about that. Were most of these others passed on, yes I believe so. For I do believe when we die we leave an energetic footprint on this earth that never fades away. Not a haunting as it is typically understood, for the entity that that body housed is already on the other side. When a so-called ghost-whisperer claims to be communicating with Aunt Betty, he or she is actually only communicating with Aunt Betty’s energetic imprint. Anything that Aunt Betty knew and experienced while on this earth can be communicated with but Aunt Betty can do no more than that, for that is ALL Aunt Betty knows. Asking Aunt Betty to forecast the future is futile…she can’t. Ask Aunt Betty if she loves her son…if she did…she will communicate that. Ask her what the other side is like (if she has been long enough passed) she will say it is wonderful. The love Aunt Betty held for others at her passing, the anger she held for others at her passing, the beliefs she held at her passing…all this one can communicate to her about. Anything else…she’s not your Aunt Betty. Many people who die in a traumatic circumstance or in areas where much bloodshed occurred, seem to hang around more strongly. The energetic imprint is a local affair. That is why there are hauntings, always at the same place and same time as when the death or events proceeding death occurred. It is imprinted like a movie that repeats itself over and over. BUT as with a movie…anything outside what was portrayed in that movie cannot occur. The only thing that can interfere in this strong energetically imprinted-movie is for an immense outpouring of love to be felt and enacted at the time of the haunting, especially heartfelt lovemaking. If this were done wherever and whenever the recent or historical haunting takes place, the movie reel will be broken, never to occur again. But then the reality TV industry wouldn’t like that much. Now would they? Sometimes with one who has the sight (is open and psychic) a passed over one’s grief, sadness, anger or anguish will be felt and the ghost will initiate contact. Sometimes in a poltergeist manner (if a dishes thrower while embodied, a dishes thrower in the formless), sometimes simply by seeking relief from their grief or anguish, sometimes just to let you know they love you. Showing love and compassion, taking their hand if you will and leading them to the light (release) will stop the haunting. BUT do understand these activities are from an imprint, not a being continuing to grow as your Aunt Betty. Yes they are real, yes they are valid, yes they do still love you if they loved you before they passed, but they no longer grow. Wherever they left off at death is as far as they can go. Their soul goes on after the third day. Any communication after post three days of dying is with the imprint. Also know that fear, anger and even the holding-on of grief for a loved-one keeps them from finding release and peace as Aunt Betty. Holding on to fierce anger or allowing fear to dominate you can increase and greatly multiply poltergeist-type attacks and hauntings.

Okay gotta take a break…I’ll be back…