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Old Orchards Aren’t Just For Apples…

25 Wednesday Sep 2013

Posted by in Ghosts and Apparitions

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Brown_ladyNames will be changed to protect identities. Sorry but it’s the only way I could get permission to relate the events to you.

In the N.D.G. district of Montreal, you will find the street, Old Orchard. Below Sherbrooke Street, is an old three story walk-up apartment and the location of some pretty scary events. The individual involved is extremely level headed and not prone to flights of imagination by any means and if you ask him about the story? He will not discuss it, for a couple of reasons; first, and foremost, he is not inclined to be the object of someone else’s disbelief and amusement, second, talking about what went on still scares him.

The gentleman who shared this story with me will be referred to as M, his female companion will be C and their child will be referred to as B.

Shortly after the birth of his first child, M and his companion moved into a 3 story walk-up on Old Orchard in N.D.G. It was a typical older building in the neighbourhood, nothing to look at and the interior was unkempt. Their apartment was long and narrow, the rooms connected by an equally long and narrow hallway. It was rather dark and not a very cheery place.

It wasn’t long before they experienced some rather bizarre goings-on. They would put an article down in one spot, only to find it had been moved. Doors would open of their own volition but as mentioned, M was logical about the doors and attributed the opening and closing to be characteristic of an old building and this would be true had it not been for the combination of other events.

Being Catholic by birth, a crucifix was hung in the baby’s room. C. went in to check on their child while M was in their living room, watching television, after checking on the baby, she noticed the crucifix had somehow slipped and was now hanging upside down. She and the baby joined M in the living room and C mentioned the crucifix, asking M to fix it. M thought this to be very strange because of the way the crucifix had been attached but went into the room to put it right side up. Upon entering the baby’s room however, he noticed a decided chill and adjusted the thermostat. He checked the crucifix and it appeared someone had taken the icon from the wall and deliberately re-hung it. After he had fixed the problem, he went back to the living room to ask C if she had tried to fix it and inadvertently left it upside down. C told him that she hadn’t touched it since he had hung it up there, some weeks prior. M. shrugged it off.

The next day, C took the baby to visit some friends and M stayed home, he had to go to work later on in the day. He decided to shower and then watch a bit of television; upon coming out of the shower, however, he noted the bathroom door was open, although he knew he had closed it, his clothing was hanging on the hook. This wasn’t the first time he had encountered problems with doors opening and closing, as mentioned earlier but this was the first time he felt any real unease.

When he had finished his grooming, he closed the bathroom door, tightly and made his way to the living room. All the doors down the hallway were closed. Those doors had been open when he decided to shower. Walking down the hallway, he re-opened the doors and started back to the living room. The bathroom door was now fully opened even though he had closed it.

C had mentioned to M that she had noticed things out of the corner of her eye but when turning to look, nothing would be there and she also told him that she felt like she was being watched. M was now experiencing that same feeling; that someone was watching him. He tried to shrug it off and sat down in his living room, his choice of chair faced the hallway as well as the television, as he was about to flip the t.v. on, his attention was drawn to the hallway and to his unpleasant surprise, he was witness to an opaque, dark, clearly defined shadow form walk past the door and disappear. He jumped up, of course, to investigate but there was nothing there. The hall was empty.

The following series of events made it very clear to the young couple that they were living in the wrong place and needed to re-locate, as soon as possible.

When M arrived home from work the following day, C told him that he would have to rehang the crucifix again as it had flipped upside down again. M. knew this wasn’t likely as he had secured the cross to the wall to ensure this wouldn’t happen again. He went toward the baby’s bedroom and as he was about to enter the room, he was first hit by a blast of cold, at the same time he saw a dark shadow that seemed to be leaning over his baby’s crib. He advanced toward the shadow and felt as if he was being pushed back; he lunged forward and the shadow disappeared, his son began to cry. He grabbed up B and as he fled the room, he noticed that the crucifix was, indeed, upside down, again.

Following that incident, C refused to stay in the apartment another night and with M’s help, they packed up the baby’s belongings and necessities; she went to stay with family while M prepared the little family for their move out.

The problems continued as M tried to pack their belongings. He would fill a box, only to find some of the objects out of the box and on the floor as soon as he turned his back. And the crucifix? He was finishing up the baby’s room when it flew off the wall and hitting the opposite wall.

Whatever was in the apartment remained there because once the little family moved out, they had no further problems.

Ouija; Never Ends Well

25 Wednesday Sep 2013

Posted by in Ouija, Tarot, Black Mirrors and Seances

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Ouija boardNever been a big fan of the Ouija board, any type of Ouija board – Milton Bradley/Hasbro or homemade. I don’t like ’em, I don’t trust ’em and I would just as soon put a wet finger in an electrical socket than use one.

An analogy, for me, would be; using the Ouija is akin to putting all your valuables in your front hallway, turning on a strobe light with accompanying siren, then leaving your front door wide open. I don’t care who you think you are – a Ouija board is Occult for Extreme Dummies. You will never control who does or does not respond. You will never know what you have contacted. Whatever is out there can lie as well as any politician and then some. Without exaggeration, I have never known the regular use of a Ouija board to turn out well.

Just to prove my point and as Ouija is popular sport come Samhain, a few tales that have come my way over the years….take ’em or leave ’em but don’t go crying to anyone should something “bad” happen. The warning is given – do what thou wilt shall be…you know the rest.

Some years back, I used to throw my doors open to the Pagan community and host various events; workshops of different sorts, group meetings for practitioners of witchcraft, I was even involved with a school – Horn and Crescent, for a bit. During that time, I came into contact with a variety of folks with their own stories to tell. To a person, everyone who felt the compulsion to pull out that stupid board ran into problems of the unexplained sort.

Example #1: A young person had lost a relative and wanted, understandably, to find out if the deceased loved one had made it to the other side. She had a few friends over for an evening and the talk turned to death and contacting the other side. A few days prior to the evening, the young lady had picked up a Ouija board at a flea market. It wasn’t a new board but was in good condition. She brought the topic up to the group and it was decided that it would be interesting to try the thing out. After a few false starts, fits of giggling and general frivolity, the group settled down and took to the task of summoning a spirit in earnest. They achieved, what they felt was the desired response and after some accusations of someone or other moving the planchette, they felt confident that they had, in fact, made contact. Questions were asked, primarily yes or no but then they started with more complex questions, requiring spelling.

The girl reported that the room, as expected, became cold but not everyone felt it. The group began to feel uneasy. They had lit the mandatory candles and a couple went out. They asked if the entity was the girl’s deceased relative and the answer came back affirmative. This wasn’t proof enough for one of the young men in attendance and he asked the relative’s name be spelled out. The name was spelled and it wasn’t the relative’s name. The name made no sense to the group but they were all rather unnerved and called an abrupt end to the session. Lights were, hastily, turned on but the fun had gone out of the evening and the group dispersed.

Now, if you are familiar with summoning of anything, you will note there were some important precautions that were not taken. There was no protection work done, the group was diverse and had never worked together in matters of the occult before. And? Probably the two most important errors were as follows – they asked a name and never dismissed what they had summoned. Not that I believe a normal dismissal would have worked in this case.

As should have been expected, the young lady started to experience unnerving incidents as early as that evening. Even with everyone gone, she felt like she was not alone. Her cat, normally a friendly little fellow, had disappeared (don’t worry, he was fine – he was hiding in her closet and refused to come out). She was so off balance that she left the lights on in her apartment. It took her a long time to fall asleep that night. When she woke in the morning, the lights were off. She was also missing a small silver ring. Not unusual, we all misplace jewellery, except, she reported that it had been on her finger. It wasn’t something she ever removed, in fact, she told me it was hard to get over her knuckles and that’s why she left it on.

Her cat remained in the closet and she was forced to move the litter box and the cat’s food next to the closet door. Yes, the door started closing. She would leave the bedroom, come back and the door would be closed, her cat mewing at her from behind the door.

Other pieces of jewellery started to go missing, always her silver pieces. The gold and the costume plated were left untouched. This continued for a week. Then the dreams started – there would always be a stork but it would have red eyes and was never a positive representation of the bird. She felt fear and found herself trying to run away from it but it was always there. In her dreams, she would turn a corner and the bird would be there, staring at her and screeching.

She was told to give me a call by a mutual acquaintance. After flitting around the real reason for her call, I invited her over. She looked like hell (pardon the pun). She looked exhausted and totally strung out. We sat down and had some coffee, she started with the flitting about but I don’t have much patience for mundane coffee klatch stuff so I told her to cut the crap and get to the point. She related the story to me and pulled out a piece of paper with the name that had been spelled out that night. I’m relatively familiar with angels and demons but this name didn’t ring any immediate bells. I hauled out one of my books and sure enough, there he was. A demon. Not one of your common ones and definitely not a name with which many would be familiar.

Take this for what it’s worth; this demon is known to be (surprise, surprise) a liar with a penchant for silver. He is also represented as a stork with a loud, unpleasant voice. Not terribly difficult to dismiss but it should never have happened. Messing about with things we don’t understand that can have unpleasant consequences in, in a word, stupid. I told her what to do and apparently, it was successful. She told me after dismissing the demon, she put the board in a green garbage back, tied it up tight and tossed it in the trash.

I have a few more examples for you but it’s the Witching Hour and I’m exhausted.

Ghosts In The Family Part II

25 Wednesday Sep 2013

Posted by in Ghosts and Apparitions, Poltergeists and Things That Go Bump

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We have had “incidents” in our current home. Things have been very quiet over the past few years but during the late nineties to about 2008, life was not all that pleasant around here.

Below is an just an example of the things experienced in our home, it was written by one of our sons; he wanted to document the events.

“It’s currently 3:00am… And I refuse to go turn my music off. So I am going to sit here and wait until it has finished the 5 disk cycle… this could be a while.

Why do I refuse to turn it off? Because I refuse to leave this room. Not only have I seen something repeatedly, a picture flew off the wall… a good 6-7 feet. Music volume going up and down… feeling weird brushes against my arm as I walked/vacuumed. The cake I baked at 12 o’clock move a good 3 feet across the table between the time I left to have a cigarette. And the birds are still squawking…. They have been for quite some time… and every time they start… they are facing another part of the rooms. The vacuum moved as well… Has been quite an active night for whatever occupies this house with us. Cold chills. Brushing. Things moving – both violently and innocently.

The first event tonight was the brooms falling down the stairs. Oddly enough, I wasn’t on the stairs, I was in the kitchen baking my cake. This is LONG before I went down there to paint my toolbox. I thought nothing of it and brought them back up. (birds begin squawking)

While making the icing for the cake, something brushes my arm, Several times. Not once, not twice, pushing toward 5 or 6 times. In the middle of the kitchen. I wasn’t hitting the counter of fridge, it was always in the same spot. About 5 feet back from the counter, almost directly in the middle. (bird fairly quiet, just the usual “Let me sleep chirps”)

At about 2, I went outside to have a cigarette, I wrapped the cake delicately with saran wrap and placed it on the icing rack. The icing rack was on the left side of the table… Closest to the birds. When I came back, my cake was on the other corner. This is when I began getting weird vibes. (Birds are STILL squawking, this time Percy seems like she is having night fright and jumping/crashing into the four corners of her little caged world)

The light in the dining room began to swing and the temperature dropped significantly. (Birds-all- Acting as if suffering from night fright. Severely.

At about 2:15 I was pushed in the hallway between the basement and bathroom. Did not trip, was pushed. Not heavily, just a light shove forward.

The picture flew off the wall in the front hall way at about 2:30, along with the volume fluctuations.”

My husband and I were away that weekend and when we returned, we found our son had ended up sleeping in the car. He was simply too unnerved to return to the house.

A few examples of other incidents:

  1. Our Yule tree flew across the living room; it didn’t fall over, it flew, along with the stand it was in, about 6 feet from its original location. I was sitting on the sofa, reading at the time. Prior to the tree flying, I had seen a shadow move across the kitchen. A solid shadow, you couldn’t see through it but at this point, we were used to “seeing” things in the home.
  2. We had 4 parrots at the time. Every so often, day or night, they would all freak out – squawking and behaving like a cat was in their cages.
  3. Doors would open and close on their own.
  4. I was in the kitchen, one afternoon, doing up some dishes when someone put their hand on my shoulder. I thought my husband had come home early and turned around. There was, of course, no one there. It wasn’t a slight brush of my shoulder – it was the pressure of a hand. I do know the difference.
  5. There were the sounds of footsteps in empty rooms and the definite feeling that one was not alone.

The final straw was what occurred with my youngest son, as described above. We ended up having to do several cleansings and in time, the disturbances lessened and have, thus far, ceased all together.

Ghosts In The Family

25 Wednesday Sep 2013

Posted by in Ghosts and Apparitions

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female ghost Every nationality has its own belief in ghost or specters but it would seem none more so than the Irish.  A very superstitious lot, are the Irish.  From the legends of the little people to the terrifying banshees; the Irish have the bases covered.

 My family is, predominately Irish and as a result, I grew up surrounded by tales of ghosts, legends and practices of the paranormal type.   Tea leaves, potions, curses and rituals were as natural as breathing to them as were ghosts.  The concept of ghostly visitations were a given; there were no disputes or arguments, no debates pro and con, ghosts were an accepted part of life.  And, whether delusions, illusions, imagination or the susceptibility of the family because of their belief, actual regular visitations were the order of the day/night.

 The first real ghost story was told to me by my grandmother and was a narrative of something that happened to her.   My grandmother was from Newfoundland, a very small fishing village; she had a large family, as was the norm for Newfoundland in those days.  Child mortality rates were very high.  Newfoundlanders were, primarily, sailors and fishermen; there was a lot of naval traffic in and out of the various ports of call along Newfoundland’s rugged coastline.  Sailors from all over the world could be found in port during the shipping season.  One sunny day, an Italian ship came into port and impacted my grandmother’s family forever.  The captain was an Italian and apparently, quite a good looking man.  He was also, as rumour would have it, married but sailors are renowned for their wandering eye and his eye wandered over to my great-aunt Theresa, my grandmother’s slightly older and truth to tell, favourite sister.  She was, by all accounts, a blonde haired, blue eyed beauty and immediately the captain went about the business of seduction.  She was as naïve as any babe in the woods and fell, head over heels, in love with him and my guess would be, to his dismay – he had fallen in love with her.  The inevitable happened and he had to go back to Italy.  She was inconsolable and I gather, considering what he decided to do, the captain was as well.  They decided that she would return to Italy with him.  What he planned to do about the wife in the home country is beyond me. A further obstacle to these star crossed lovers was my great-grandfather, who, of course, absolutely forbid Theresa from ever seeing this dastardly foreigner again.

They came up with a plan; Theresa would sneak away and the two would sail off into the sunrise, ostensibly to Italy and live happily ever after.

Theresa secreted herself away and boarded the ship.  The captain was waiting and they weighed anchor, sailing out into the Atlantic and Italy.  A storm moved in and Atlantic storms are legendary.  The ship sank, killing all aboard.

My grandmother was unaware that Theresa had run off with her captain.  The night the ship sank, she was startled awake by Theresa.  She was standing at the foot of her bed, soaking wet.  My grandmother asked her what had happened, why was she wet?  The weather was so cold.  Theresa sat down and looked at her, with what my grandmother describes as great sadness and then, she disappeared.  My grandmother thought she had been dreaming but the dream didn’t explain the water on the floor or the wetness of her bed clothes.

A few days later, the news came to the family; Theresa had drowned at sea, with her Italian captain and all his crew.