Paranormal Experiences (Before This) Part 1 of 2
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Paranormal Experiences (Before This)
Part 1
"There was enchantment in the very air that blew from that haunted place, breathing an atmosphere of dreams, and fancies."
-Washington Irving
"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"
December 23rd, 2021
The Appalachian Mountains are magical. I've been saying that for a long time; since I was first old enough to know it.
The backwoods of Appalachia is made up of steep mountainsides; and curvy, treacherous roads that might lead you somewhere, someday. It's made of forests thick with trees, and thick with undergrowth, too; of leaf-crunching footfalls; bubbling streams where you might find an arrowhead, or gold; and falling-down shacks, their boards turned either pitch or dirty snow by the years. It's sweeping vistas; old churches; even older cemeteries; and dark hollows that cry out for you to come and find... something.
It's where Mee Maws gathered aprons full of green beans, and broke them into old washtubs on front porches, as twilight colored everything in hazy shades of maroon and purple. Mee Maw is gone now; but you can see her still, when you close your eyes. She's still there; her floral dress, metal-framed horn-rims, and wrinkled hands, somehow so soft.
Time has stood still here for so long; you don't have to walk far to find a scene that hasn't changed in 50 years, or a hundred, or maybe more. It is described perfectly in Washington Irving's words about Sleepy Hollow; but it reminds me even more somehow of "Rip Van Winkle." It's a place where you're never quite awake; a place so restful and inviting, so completely intoxicating, that you just might take a nap, and you might not care much if you never wake up.
It's easy to believe in magic in Appalachia. It's the sort of place that makes you feel as if anything could happen. Perhaps that's why we have so many ghost stories, and perhaps that's why I believed them. I'm going to share the stories I grew up with, along with some of my personal experiences; as well as why, beautiful though some of them are, no one should ever believe in most of them again, at least not from the same perspective. I present this background information as a case study; I hope that it will be a useful example of diagnosing and dissecting paranormal activity, and also that it will help clarify how I've reached my own conclusions.
Of all the stories I was ever told, the one that stands out the most is the story of my great-grandpa's "ghost." It stands as a paragon of innocence lost; because I once thought it a beautiful love story, but now... I only see the horror that it actually was.
Great-grandpa's Ghost
My great-grandpa was, by all accounts, and also by photographic proof, a big, tall, handsome man; who was a snazzy dresser, and who possessed a head full of dark hair with that little Superman curl falling over his forehead. Kindness is harder to see in photographs, but everyone who knew him said he had plenty of that too.
My great-grandma was tall as well; a brunette with high cheekbones, who was perhaps more statuesque than movie-star gorgeous. She was a well-respected teacher and a churchgoer, who wore those hats with little veils and white gloves to Sunday service. She and Great-grandpa got married in the 1920s, built a big white house... two-stories and an attic... and had six children. They were a model family, and as far as I know, they had a happy life.
But, life ain't fair. In 1934, Great-grandpa died; from an abscessed tooth, of all things. Great-grandma never remarried. She provided for her children as well as she could... and got them all raised just fine by herself. She never had an empty nest for long, though... over the years, several of her grandchildren came to live with her for a time, for whatever reason, or else they spent their summers there. One of these children was my mother's first cousin, "Allie."
I don't know when exactly the phenomena started, but by the time Allie came to spend a summer at the big white house, sometime in the 1960s, Great-grandma was being visited nightly by one ghost, while another ghost was said to inhabit the attic. Our other cousins, "Frank" and "Lenny," who were also staying there told her,
"At night, when it's quiet, you can hear someone walking up the stairs... And, anytime we play our music too loud, Great-grandpa, up in the attic, will bang his cane on the floor!"
"Great-grandpa?" Allie asked, stunned.
"Yeah," they told her, we know it's him, 'cause he walked with that cane, and he had a limp. Sometimes, even when we're not playing our music too loud, we hear him... walking... dragging his bad leg.
(This man, by the way, was their great grandpa... my great-great grandpa, as I'm part of the next generation.)
Although she'd been young when he'd passed, Allie remembered their great-grandfather. He'd come to live in the big white house in the last years of his life, so that his daughter-in-law could care for him. Allie distinctly remembered the sound he'd made when he walked. Children notice things like that. There had been the regular footstep, with the good leg; and then the tap of the cane, followed by the scraping sound of his shoe as he dragged his bad leg along.
Step. Tap. Scrape.
"Well, who is it that's walking up and down the stairs?" she asked.
"I guess Grandpa," Lenny said, with a shrug, and Frank nodded in agreement.
Allie hadn't been sure at the time whether or not to believe her cousins. They'd been known to tell some tall tales before. Still, something in their wide-eyed expressions had indicated that they might really be sincere this time.
That night, as Allie was about to drift off to sleep, she heard the undeniable sound of someone walking up the stairs. Though terrified, part of her wanted to be brave and go have a look, just in case it was only Frank and Lenny trying to pull one over on her. But some other part of her told her to "be still." She ended up pulling the blanket over her head; and sobbing, repeated The Lord's Prayer until falling asleep.
Allie wanted to ask Great-grandma about the ghosts, but she wasn't quite sure how exactly to bring it up. She didn't want to sound stupid, if the whole thing did turn out to be a stunt that Frank and Lenny were pulling.
The next night, when the footsteps commenced their trek up the staircase, Allie got out of bed and crept to the door; which was partially open, of course, because she wasn't going to sleep with it closed after all that. She peered out into the foyer, not seeing anyone; yet still hearing the footsteps. It was awfully dark, though, and Frank and Lenny could have easily been hiding somewhere. Deciding that it would be best to go ahead and find out the truth, she quickly darted to the lightswitch by the front door and turned the light on.
When she twirled around to face the staircase... her blood-curdling scream woke the entire household.
"What in the world are you youngins doing!?" Great-grandma stormed from her bedroom, just before her light switched on. Then Frank and Lenny's light switched on too, and they came pattering out of their room, sleepily. Great-grandma, throwing her housecoat on, appeared in her doorway.
"Are you hurt? What's going on?" she asked, as she approached the bottom of the stairs, where Allie now sat, looking embarrassed.
"There was a rat," Allie said.
"Well? We need to set a trap, then. Why are you out of bed screaming about it?" Great-grandma asked.
Then Allie had no choice but to come clean with it; admitting that she had been trying to catch either a ghost, or her cousins playing a trick on her. She asked Great-grandma if there was really a ghost that walked up and down the stairs.
"That's just your grandpa," Great-grandma replied, "He comes to see me at night... pulls the covers off of me... and tickles my feet."
"What about the one upstairs? In the attic?" Allie had asked.
"That's Dad," Great-grandma had explained, "He won't bother you."
Allie never heard her great-grandpa in the attic that summer; but every night she heard the footsteps on the staircase.
The 1970s found a grown-up Lenny living at the house with Great-grandma, along with his wife, "Leanne," and small stepdaughter, "Sarah." Great-grandma walked with a walker by that time, and she'd moved into a room downstairs.
Frank and Lenny's mother had died tragically in a car accident a few years prior. When they'd arrived home for the first time after the accident, they'd found a framed picture of their mother, which had been hanging on a wall, lying on the floor. It had fallen, apparently, and the glass had shattered. They said that afterwards, they'd sometimes hear her high heels clicking on the hardwood floor in the hallway of that house.
One night, while still living at home with their father, they'd hosted a ouija board session, which Allie had attended. Lenny had asked whom they should try to contact. It seemed evident that his mother was not an option to be considered. Allie had known a good-looking guy from the neighborhood, who had died recently in some sort of accident, so she'd suggested they try to contact him. Lenny had then said some very ceremonial sounding hoodoo about "calling forth so-and-so from the other side," and they'd felt a bit of a breeze, even though they were inside a basement.
Lenny had called out,
"If you're here with us, give us a sign!"
And then... BOOM! Something unseen had hit the wall behind them.
Allie, retelling the story years later, very humorously described the open-mouthed expression of shock on Lenny's face when that happened.
He'd called out again,
"Give us another sign!"
And... BOOM! Again, something hit the wall.
Then objects had literally started flying around the room. Papers, whatnots from a nearby shelf, everything...
They had all run, screaming, from the basement, and had vowed never to play with Ouija boards again.
Lenny didn't tell Leanne about the house ghosts before she and Sarah moved in. The first day, after their marriage, that Lenny went to work, something had followed Leanne's every move. It was right behind her with every step she took. When he came home that day and found his new bride looking distressed, he asked her,
"What's the matter?"
She replied,
"I don't know what's in this house; but it's been breathing down my neck all day."
In the days that followed, when she felt it "breathing down her neck" like that, she'd rebuke it, saying,
"Alright, you! You can just back up and give me some space!"
And it would, seemingly, comply.
Lenny didn't worry too much about the ghosts. They were the ghosts of his relatives, after all, and harmless. Eventually the spirits left them alone, for the most part; though they'd find objects moved from time to time, and the pull chain lights would turn on and off by themselves, leaving the chains swinging. And, as ever, if they made too much noise, they'd hear the cane tapping on the attic floor.
It was sometime in the 1970s that Allie finally heard the old man tapping his cane on the floorboards. It was Halloween night, and they were having a little shindig. Lenny had bought the 8-track of In uh gadda Da Vida, and was playing it on repeat. They were all just sitting around, when suddenly there was a BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM BAM BAM!
on the floorboards above their heads.
Allie told me herself that, to be fair, it was about the eighth time he'd played that fifty-seven-hour-long song, and it really was getting annoying.
Once, at the big white house, Lenny, and another cousin, had looked out a window and seen an apparition of Lenny's mother. She was kneeling on the ground, making motions as if she were gardening. That particular spot had indeed been the site of a garden at one time; but nothing was currently growing there. As they watched, in a combination of horror and amazement, she turned her head and "looked" right at them. This wasn't entirely a sensible gesture, however... because where her eyes should have been... there were only black holes.
When Lenny and Leanne heard Sarah wailing, they rushed upstairs. They found Sarah sitting at the foot of the attic stairs, red-faced and crying; toys scattered all around her.
"He pushed me!" Sarah had screamed, through her tears. "The old man! He pushed me!"
They didn't live there for too much longer after that. Great-grandma's health declined to the point that she had to go to a nursing home. Lenny and Leanne bought a house closer to town, where things seemed to be calmer for Leanne and Sarah. Lenny, however, continued to have paranormal experiences for the rest of his life. The big white house was rented out to a new family... who also reported hearing banging on the attic floor whenever they made too much noise.
The house no longer exists; it was lost to a fire set by arsonists, many years later.
Sometime in the 1990s, a grownup Sarah was visiting her parents, when Lenny brought out an album of old family photos he'd found somewhere. Sarah was sitting on the sofa, between her parents, holding the album on her lap. She turned a page, and then abruptly threw the book to the floor and screamed.
"That's the man!" she screamed. "That's the man who pushed me down the stairs!"
It was, surely enough, a portrait of Great-great-grandpa; the alleged resident of the attic.
The 1990s saw Frank, who had moved away years before, become a father to a little girl, whom he named "Edith," after his mother. When Edith was about three years old, she announced that she had an imaginary friend; and that her friend was also named Edith. Frank and his wife thought that was a very uncreative name for an imaginary friend, but they didn't see any cause for concern.
One day they spied on little Edith as she was admiring a row of framed family photos hanging on a wall, and noticed that she appeared to be talking to herself. They still weren't concerned exactly, assuming that she was chatting with her imaginary friend. Finding it humorous, however, they listened closer; and realized that she was actually naming all the people in the photos, correctly. Frank and his wife exchanged looks of confusion, which silently said,
"But we have not taught her that stuff yet!"
Astonished, they continued watching and listening until finally Edith arrived at a photo of her namesake, her grandmother, Edith.
Young Edith smiled then, and said,
"I know. That's you!"
Years later, a visitor at Frank's house would casually inquire,
"Who's that lady in the other room there, with Edith?"
When asked to describe the lady he'd seen, the guest had provided a description which matched that of Frank's mother, Edith.
Frank led him to the photo of his mother hanging on the wall, and asked,
"Is that her?"
The guest replied,
"Yes! That's her! Who is she? A relative?"
It was clear that the guest was not aware that what he'd seen was an apparition.
Analysis of Great-grandpa's Ghost
Okay... whew, there's a lot here. Actually, this is all of the significant stories that aren't my own, all rolled into one; but they're intertwined, so I wrote it that way.
It was the people; not the place... at least mostly.
First of all, most people would consider this to be a haunted house story; and that is precisely the understanding that I had, until one year ago. That house was infested with demons, for sure; so, from that perspective, yes, it was haunted. I still don't believe, however, that places are haunted so much as people. I think the demons attached themselves to members of my family; and activity occurred at that house because they congregated there.
Here's a breakdown of what I think really happened...
Is Appalachia enchanting because it's so demon-infested? Or is it demon-infested because it's so enchanting? This theory might be a little out there, but if the location has anything to do with the number of hauntings, I think it's this... Places as remote as the backwoods of Appalachia are the types of places that people either love or hate. The solitude and serenity don't appeal to some, and those people leave. Those people are probably not empaths, also known as sensitives. Empaths require that solitude; and, like me, wouldn't ever leave it, not for love or money. Therefore, it's possible that, in remote locations like this one, a higher percentage of the population are psychically sensitive people... people whose families have been inter-marrying for generations as well. So, there may not necessarily be more hauntings; it may be only that the hauntings are more noticed. Plus, this particular area is primarily Baptist; and they don't seem to acknowledge or teach about demons and possession; not even incorrectly. They speak of them metaphorically... for example, I've heard people say, I ain't been going to church lately. The devil musta got in me... It's a figure of speech to them, though; they have no idea that they're exactly literally right about that! So, nobody here knows the truth about this stuff, yet many of the people here are sensitives; and everyone here assumes that the spirits they encounter are the friendly spirits of loved ones, visiting from Heaven, I suppose. Could this be a perfect storm... Or... I guess it could be that the spirits themselves enjoy the solitude and serenity.
It was my great-grandma who was haunted; originally, anyway.
She was targeted after the death of her husband, because demons prey on the grieving.
The spirits impersonated great-grandpa, and later, great-great-grandpa, just to get to stay and cause trouble, all while perpetuating the false belief that our loved ones' ghosts are still walking around.
One of the spirits might have actually been in love with my great-grandma. It seems that they were playful and affectionate with her. I'm thankful, in a way, that she probably never found out the truth.
The spirit in the attic, if there were indeed two, that is, but I think they work in groups, was attempting to control the family in some way by demanding that they allow him his space, and by demanding that they keep their music turned down. They want to control us and they want respect. Actually, they want to be gods.
The spirits played all those tricks; moving objects, etc. The pull chains, which would still be swinging after the lights flicked on or off, provide evidence that old wiring was not the cause of that phenomena. Furthermore, even though it may have been a rat making noise on the stairs... at least that one time... there was obviously a lot more going on than that.
Spirits projected the hallucinatory image of Lenny's mother without eyes to him and our other cousin.
The "pretending to be gardening" trick is actually a good one! They did that, and possibly the "walking up the stairs every night" as well... to perpetuate the false belief that some hauntings are residual hauntings. All hauntings are intelligent hauntings; although the demons may very well be dumb.
I have wondered if Sarah might have actually gotten scared and fallen down the stairs; or if perhaps she was only lightly touched rather than pushed. I haven't experienced spirits being that strong; though I have heard reports of adults being pushed down stairs by them. That's beside the point really, though, because the point is that she saw something that scared her. Apparently she saw a spirit, who was materialized enough for her to recognize a photo of the person he was impersonating. So, he was pretty solid at that point. He might have pushed her.
I don't know if the fact that this spirit was able to fully materialize necessarily means that it was a particularly powerful one, as was my first thought. I realized that actually, in most situations, they can mess with us better if they remain invisible; so maybe that's why full materialization is not a common occurrence.
If these spirits were particularly strong or powerful, it was because NO ONE WAS FIGHTING THEM! They were practically accepted as members of the family, because they were believed to be members of the family. Spirits want this; they want us to accept them and allow them to live with us. It will not turn out well, even if you do accept them. You've seen how this goes... eventually someone falls down some stairs. Lesser known, and far more insidious, is how they will be influencing the family's thoughts, beliefs, and actions. They'll turn a family away from God. They do not have your best interest at heart.
About the new family hearing the tapping on the attic floor... I know that Lenny eventually told them about that, but I don't know if he told them before they had experienced it themselves. Lenny has passed away now, so I can't exactly ask him... well, and expect an answer right now, anyway. But, with that situation, either one of two things happened:
Edith's imaginary friend was a spirit who was impersonating her grandmother... and yes, Edith is extremely psychic. Of course, here again, no one was showing this spirit who's the boss, because they thought it was Frank's mother, acting as a guardian angel. I think it's possible that many childhood imaginary friends are actually spirits! But, I also think it's possible that some lonely children... or possibly even adults... might create a companion for themselves who is actually imaginary... but they are aware that the companion is imaginary... so, not the same thing as hearing voices. In this case however, it was definitely a psychic child interacting with a real spirit, who had obviously explained itself as an imaginary friend. Be cautious of this. Frank does not seem to have been all that psychic. He did not go on to have a lifetime of paranormal experiences, at least not that I know of. He's passed away now also. He apparently didn't hear the voice of the imaginary friend, or see the apparition that his guest saw... but, he may have passed on some recessive gene that predisposes one to developing psychic abilities. My guess is that one of the original spirits did not attach itself to Frank; and that the spirit impersonating his mother was a new spirit, who got all the information necessary to put on that show from their family photos... and their minds. But why was Frank not chosen? Because he was less psychic? Or, was he less psychic because he was not chosen? Hell if I know.
Leanne and Sarah did not go on to have lives filled with paranormal experiences either; yet, like Frank, they had them at the big white house. This is proof, to me, that you don't have to be psychic to have paranormal experiences, especially in an area of very concentrated activity; but you will definitely have more paranormal experiences if you are psychic.
It was not the most haunted house in America or anything; although from this account, one might be inclined to think so. I think it was more like "the most psychics in one family in America," if anything... It was an area of concentrated activity, but it was far from being the only one. There may not have been more activity at this particular house than at many other houses... or perhaps even at all houses... but there were more people who could sense it.
I've visited the land where the house sat several times, even during this past year. It's very peaceful there. I'm fairly certain that my own familiar spirits, who went with me, were the only ones there. I definitely don't think it's a major spirit stomping ground or anything.
So, wouldn't this qualify as a family curse? Well, in a sense. But it's more like a "diabetes runs in the family" type of curse, rather than a "some witch put a spell on us," or a "this is a punishment from God" type of curse. I do think it's possible that sometimes spirits target a particular family for generations, and that is probably at least partially what happened here. Earthbound Spirits, also known as Demons, are more corrupt than most of us. They are generally evil and insidious in nature; and generally they spend all their time trying to sow seeds of destruction in our lives, and convince us of to believe falsehoods, all while getting together at ghost meetings to laugh about their successes. Still, I think they retain some human emotions. If, for example, you were suddenly without a home, you'd probably choose to go and live with someone you know as opposed to a stranger, wouldn't you? I think it's reasonable to assume that they're the same way. However, the truth about so-called family curses is most likely that psychic ability is the real family curse. There's probably nothing you can do about it. No prayer for breaking a family curse has worked for me; I've tried them. I'm grateful that I chose not to have children. I now feel as if my reluctance to become a parent may have been for a reason. I would not have wanted to put someone else through this. In my own way, I'm breaking a little bit of this curse; my part in it anyway, ends with me. As far as "the family's familiar spirits" go... It could be that my familiar spirits are some of the family's, but I don't really think so. It is quite possible that my demon infestation has nothing to do with my family or that house. After all, I was born after most of these events, and I had many years of no paranormal experiences, at least none that I recognized as such. Stephanie and I think it's more likely that we picked up our bitch hikers at Aunt Nell's; and that they were there, not because they were her attachments, but because they come flying in from all over whenever a death is imminent... so that they can then target the grieving... Honestly, though, it could have happened just about any time or place. I've come to believe that you can catch a spirit attachment as easily as you can catch a cold.
Update
August 22nd, 2023
I was very pissed off when I wrote this... nearly two years ago...
At that point, I'd been tortured, for almost a year, by the very same team of demons who have now become my friends.
So... I have revised my opinions about some of the things I've mentioned here.
First of all, they're not all... always bad.
Second, in the time since I wrote this, I have had another explanation of a "family curse" revealed to me. I wrote about it in Saints and Haints, at the end, but, long story short, some demons have revealed to me since then that my great-grandmother was, in fact, the love interest of a demon. The one who visited her nightly was not the ghost of my great-grandfather; he was instead the spirit of some other man, one who was in league with Satan. Well, to be completely accurate, the spirit who visited her was probably one of the henchmen who worked for the demon who was actually in love with her. He's high-ranking, as I understand it. This man... this demon... had apparently developed a crush on her, and that was that. She was haunted for the rest of her life because of this.
She chose Heaven when she died, of course, so he lost her. He has, since then, searched for a replacement amongst her descendants, targeting the women in particular... even me... trying to entice one of us to come down the stairs and join him... He's not one of my group of demons; they are the result of another entanglement entirely. But that family connection is one of the reasons why I was a haunted individual long before I ever knew it.
It has also been revealed to me that how psychic we are, more often than not, depends on how much and how directly demons want to communicate with us. I am back and forth still to this day on the topic of whether or not we are "born psychic." I think that some of us are born with certain characteristics which predispose us to understanding the messages that spirits are constantly trying to send us; characteristics such as a quiet nature, self-awareness, and being very reflective and observant.
I have decided that ghosts might like to hang out in certain locations sometimes, even abandoned houses and the like; perhaps because they too seek solitude at times. Still, I understand that once a location is labeled "haunted," the ghosts who hang out are most likely doing so because it has been labeled haunted. They want to scare the paranormal investigators; so, you see, it's really people who are the drawing factor.
I stand by everything else I said originally; though, I will note that I have substituted the word "spirit," or some derivative of it, here, whereas in the published text, I used the word "shaint." Shaint is a word that they taught me; it's a term they've used to describe themselves, but it has a somewhat derogatory connotation.
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