Beliefnet's humorist joins psychic Echo Bodine for a most unusual tour of Minneapolis/St. Paul
In some ways, Echo Bodine and I were like the other couples visiting open houses that Sunday afternoon. We were neatly dressed, we had an itinerary (a carefully studied Minneapolis Star-Tribune real estate section), and we knew exactly what we were looking for. Unlike other couples, however, we weren't interested in location, price, or how well the pipes would hold up come winter. No, we were there to check out strange vibes, inexplicable sounds, white light, and clouds of energy--particularly clouds in a human shape.
In other words, we were looking for dead people--"just looking for ghosts," as Echo flatly told one real estate agent who asked what he could help us find--spirits who, for various reasons, would rather bang around in an attic and scare the bejeezus out of the living than kick back in paradise with departed friends and loved ones.
Echo Bodine is a professional ghostbuster, or "ghost counselor," as she also calls herself. A psychic and a spiritual healer based in the Twin Cities, she talks to ghosts, and often argues with them as she attempts to coax the more stubborn among them "down the tunnel and into the light."
Though she's been featured on shows such as "Sally Jesse Raphael" and NBC's "The Other Side," I discovered Echo through her latest book, "Relax, It's Only a Ghost: My Adventures With Spirits, Hauntings, and Things that Go Bump in the Night." Echo's otherworldly encounters were so deliciously odd, I couldn't set the book down. There was Bill, a policeman ghost who protected the women who worked in a "massage parlor." When Echo confronted him, Bill confessed that he tore down a shower curtain out of anger when he realized a john was a priest.
On another ghostbusting, Echo met a female spirit who had such a crush on a guy (living) that whenever he brought a woman home, the ghost would slap him silly and throw him against a wall. Best of all, the guy was six-foot-three and enjoyed being tossed around by a jealous wraith! To his landlady's dismay, he insisted that if Echo busted his ghost, he'd move. Ultimately, man and ghost remained united.
Wow, I thought, the dead are just as screwed up as the living.
Eager to meet some residents of the Beyond for myself, I called Echo and asked if she would take me ghost hunting. She graciously assented but regretted that she didn't have any jobs at the moment. I proposed we tour open houses. "Cool," she said, and then, after a pause, blurted, "the governor's mansion! I read that Jesse Ventura told a school tour there's a ghost in his kitchen!" I booked a flight to Minneapolis online as we spoke.
I met Echo at the curb outside the governor's residence on Summit Ave. in St. Paul, where she pulled up in a sporty Geo jeep with a "Mean People Suck" bumper sticker affixed to its rear. A tall, pretty blonde, the 51-year-old has a personality to match her car--spunky and fun, not an ounce of pretension. "I feel lots of vibes here," Echo whispered as we entered the English Tudor Revival style mansion. "I mean, lots of vibes!"
The first thing I learned about ghost hunting is that it's difficult to do when you're in a group of 25, being hustled from room to room by a tour guide who seems to fear for her job, or worse, should any of her lambs stray. "It'll be tough to pinpoint a ghost in all this commotion," Echo told me, as we crossed the main foyer. Besides the stream of tours, gubernatorial staffers and other officials were bouncing between several meetings, including, we were told, The Brain, formerly known as The Body. (We didn't see him, but a press aide did verify later that one evening, when he was alone, the governor went to check on a crash in the mansion's kitchen and found dishes all over the floor.)
I gave Echo space to conduct her psychic snooping, which she performed remarkably inconspicuously. Quiet concentration, mostly. If you didn't know better, you'd think she was trying to make out a distant sound or recall a shopping list.
After the tour, we retreated to a restaurant to debrief. "Well," I demanded, as we dug into salads, "what's the verdict?"
"Oh, the place is haunted, all right," Echo said. "There was a ghost on the first floor, beyond the hallway we weren't allowed down." She closed her eyes. "I can see him better here than I could there. He's an older man. He's got white hair, a white beard. He's very content."
As Echo spoke, her eyelids twitched and her head moved slightly side to side. "He's pleased with his house--and he does consider it his house. He likes that important people live there, that history is being made there ... OK, OK," she added, as if responding to a voice only she could hear. "He doesn't care for the tours. He likes dignitaries, the aristocrats--his word--that come and go."
"Why is he there?" I asked.
"Pride in his home," Echo said, eyes still shut. "He just sits there, often by a window, and he watches people pass by. He's probably the original owner." (Horace Hills Irvine, we learned on the tour, a St. Paul attorney who built the place in 1910.) "Uh-huh, yes, I see. He also enjoys having a cigar--or two." Echo's eyes popped open. "We should find out if anybody smells cigar smoke when Jesse Ventura is not in the mansion!"
Did she feel the need to ghostbust him?
"Wouldn't do any good," she said, shaking her head. "He's determined to be there. In fact, most ghosts are, well, I don't know if stupid is the right word, but hardheaded. Immature."
As Echo explained it, "Ghosts are like everybody else. They just happen to be dead." Which means they have unresolved issues, they cling to what they know, and they're slow to recognize what's good for them. "In death as in life, we have the freedom of choice," Echo said. "Most of us step into the light, where our souls continue to evolve, but some remain in this world--ghosts. Some are afraid they might go to hell. Others want to remain close to someone here; others have someone they are afraid to see in heaven, like an abusive parent. Some ghosts don't even know they're dead! It's sad because ghosts are stuck, neither in this life or the afterlife."
The next day was Sunday, and I counted more than 150 open houses listed in the paper. I suggested we pick the neighborhood with the most homes and hit as many as possible. But I'd forgotten who my partner was. "Let me look that over while you enjoy your coffee," Echo said, taking the paper. Fifteen minutes later, she'd selected three homes--"the ones I got the strongest feelings about."
Our first stop was a "comfortable starter" in Minneapolis' Richfield section. Before we got out of the car, Echo said, "I think we should look in the basement." We offered a quick "hello" to the agent as we headed downstairs. In a corner, we found a workbench, above which hung a row of empty baby-food jars for nails and screws. "There he is," Echo said.
"Who, where?"
"A spirit--an old, stale spirit, definitely dead--right in front of the bench." She traced a spot in the air. "He spent a lot of time down here when he was alive. He doesn't care about the rest of the house--others claimed that. This was his space."
I looked, I squinted, but I couldn't see a thing.
"He's not here this minute," Echo added. "But his energy is, and it's fresh. He stays here and one other place he likes to spend a lot of time in."
"The American Legion Hall?" I offered.
Echo shot me a startled look. "You're probably right. And there's one nearby!"
At the American Legion Hall, Echo stopped still in the doorway--to adjust her eyes, I assumed, to the cave-like darkness. "Oooh," she said, grimacing, "this place is crawling with vibes." (I noticed something equally disturbing, a flier by the door that read: "Meat Raffle...every Thursday, 6 to 8 p.m.") We bought Cokes at the bar and sat at a table as far from the smoke and strange looks as we could get. After five minutes, we couldn't take it any longer. "Well, no ghosts there," Echo said, gulping fresh air outside. "Just a lot of macho vibes and bravado."
We pulled up in front of a one-and-a-half-story house and stared at it. "Yup, there's a spirit in there," Echo said, still gripping the wheel. "I can feel it. It's a woman. She's on the first floor, in the back, directly beyond the front door. Bet she's in the kitchen."
Damned (so to speak) if we didn't open the door to a hallway that led straight to the kitchen. "She's here," Echo whispered, making a circle in front of the kitchen sink. "It's definitely the spirit of an older woman. Probably a previous owner, now dead."
Touring the house, I tried to tap my own powers. Each room was a showcase of knick-knacks, floral prints, and hand-knitted afghans, pillow covers, place mats, and throw rugs. A lace-covered side table displayed a half-dozen porcelain religious figures. The television was at least 30 years old. I had to agree with Echo. I, too, detected the spirit of an older woman.
The real estate agent stopped us at the door. "She's eager to sell," he said. "She's the original owner, and she's reached that point where she can no longer manage the place by herself."
I tried to think of a way of broaching the possibility of a glitch in her reading of the ghost in the kitchen, but before I could, Echo cleared it all up. "Very interesting," she said. "I bet that woman is taking a nap somewhere."
"Huh?"
"When you nap, the soul can leave your body," she explained. "That woman's soul came back to the sink to watch. She's very protective of the house, and I can tell you this--she's not seen any buyers she likes yet."
I'll admit, there's much about the spirit world I don't get. For starters, how consciousness can exist without a living body to feed it. Even more confusing to me is communication with the dead, which entails the living tapping into the "high-frequency vibrations" of the non-living's "energy." No matter how many times I try to wrap my brain around that cosmology, I always wind up cross-eyed.
Still, before I left, Echo gave me a psychic reading that blew me away--creepily accurate details about my life, my concerns and aspirations, she couldn't have guessed. If she's always that good, she's worth whatever she charges. When I asked how she knew this information, Echo said she channeled it through her spirit guide, Lilli, who had consulted my two spirit guides, Jasper and Charlene, friends from my past lives as a Scottish soldier and a German goat farmer. I'm not sure which stunned me most: that I have spirit guides, that I've had past lives, or that I'm probably the first person in the history of reincarnation who wasn't Leonardo da Vinci or Napoleon.
The last house we visited was an unkempt rambler in south Minneapolis. "I don't like the vibes of this place," Echo said, as we waded across the uncut lawn to the front door. Inside, the place was long and narrow, dark and gloomy. Echo stuck her head into the doorway of the back bedroom and jumped back. "Oh my gosh," she gasped. "There's something terrible in there!" She disappeared around the corner. I looked in and saw a small room, empty except for a bed.
Echo called me down to the basement to explain: "I saw images of violence in that room. Physical, maybe even sexual. Let's go."
The real estate agent stopped us at the door, and Echo came clean, telling him that she was a psychic drawn to the house by her intuition. To our surprise, the agent replied with total sincerity that he was fascinated by psychic phenomena. He gave Echo his card, saying he knew of some places that may be haunted if she was curious. Then, making sure no one else was around, he asked Echo what she found. She said there was something creepy about one of the rooms in the back.
"Oh, I know," he said, nodding. "The bedroom."
Then he added, and I'm not making this up: "That's probably the room in which the old man whacked himself."
Echo and I looked at each other, eyes the size of Frisbees.
"I'm not saying anything happened, of course," he added quickly. "Let's just say there's lots of speculation."
Well, yeah. Speculation was the order of the day. Standing in a grubby subdivision house talking about a guy offing himself in the back room, I realized I'd had my fill and was ready to ferry home across the River Styx. Echo and the real estate agent had settled in for a long chat. I eased open the screen door and snuck back to the car to wait.
A door suddenly slams, shattering the silence in an empty room. A TV blares on, as if by itself. Car keys left on the kitchen counter disappear, only to be found later in the shower. The sound of muffled voices filters down from the attic.
House hoax -- or haunting?
That was an easy question for Virginia Van Dusen to decide. In fact, she wasn't surprised to learn that her Minneapolis home was haunted. Over the years, several family members had reported ghostly behavior -- the sound of footsteps, unexplainable problems with appliances, small items missing.
What did surprise her was that ghostbuster Carol Lowell said she had discovered 12 ghosts in the 101-year-old house. (Lowell banished most of the ghosts, including a family of four who she said died of the plague in 1910, but allowed one ghost to remain, with Van Dusen's blessing.)
"I have never been afraid of ghosts," said Van Dusen, who has since shared some of her ghost stories in her neighborhood newspaper. "In these old Kenwood homes, I'll bet there are a lot of ghosts out there. You know, a lot of theaters are haunted, too. It's just the way it is."
From incredible to credible
Almost everyone loves a good ghost story, especially on Halloween. But it now seems that an increasing number of people believe them. Skeptics and psychics alike say acceptance of ghosts and other paranormal phenomena has grown.
Echo Bodine, a well-known Twin Cities psychic, author and longtime ghostbuster, calls the current interest in ghosts "unbelievable. It's like the interest has tripled," she said.
Sheryl Grassie, a local ghost writer, ghostbuster and a former student of Bodine's, agreed.
"The evolution of people's attitude is amazing," Grassie said. "There's something in the consciousness that ghosts are real."
Although Michael Schermer acknowledged that there has been a gradual change in attitude since the 1960s, he wouldn't call it an evolution. And instead of being amazed, he's dismayed. Schermer, author of "Why People Believe Weird Things" and founder of the Skeptics Society, considers ghosts and spirits "paranormal nonsense." But he said he understands the reason some people grasp at easy, other-worldly explanations for what may seem like mysteries.
"The idea of a transcendent spirit is ingrained in the human psyche," he said. "We are pattern-seeking, storytelling animals trying to make sense of the world."
Still, he called belief in ghosts "an assault on critical thinking. If you believe in that, what else are you willing to believe?" he asked.
The scientific spirit
John Savage considers himself somewhat of a skeptic, too. He's also the founder of the Minnesota Paranormal Investigative Group. Savage's group is affiliated with other national and international ghost "research" organizations that claim to use scientific methods to prove -- or disprove -- the existence of ghosts.
Armed with digital and video cameras, tape recorders and other more exotic tools of the trade (electromagnetic field meters, thermal guns and Geiger counters), group members inspect reportedly haunted homes to find scientific evidence of ghosts.
"Nine times out of ten, there's usually an explanation," said Savage.
But that doesn't mean he doesn't believe in ghosts. On the contrary. "They (ghosts) do exist and they are definitely quite active," he said.
But just what they are is not widely agreed upon.
Dave Oester, founder of the International Ghost Hunters Society, takes a fairly benevolent view.
"Ghosts are an extension of life after death," he said. "They have intelligence and emotions and personalities the same as when they were alive. The only thing they don't have is a physical body."
According to Oester, ghosts don't haunt, can't be seen and shouldn't be "busted" because most often are "loved ones and family members coming back to watch over you."
Bodine begs to differ. She believes ghosts are spirits of people who have died but have not passed over to the other side, that they often have no relation to the people they haunt and that they can wreak havoc on a household for no better reason than that they are bored. She sees them, talks to them and usually convinces them to leave.
Frightfully friendly
However, there are a couple of points on which many ghost aficionados agree: The vast majority of ghosts, while frightening, aren't dangerous. (The horrible ghost is largely a product of Hollywood, they said.) And although ghosts may roam cemeteries, theaters, saloons and train stations, they seem to take up residence in houses -- and not necessarily old or spooky-looking ones, at that.
Oester suggested that ghosts make themselves at home in homes because when they were human "most spirits lived in houses of one kind or another and they're going to live in a house as a ghost."
But Pat Linse, co-founder of the Skeptics Society, has a different take on haunted houses. She said people sometimes use ghosts "as a way to act out whatever conflicts there are in the family."
A door suddenly slams. A TV clicks on. Car keys disappear. House hoax -- or haunting?
Linse, of course, would call it a hoax. But then she adds: "There's a lot of fun to be had in ghost stories."
my friend has a ghost in her kids bedroom. It was the room the old lady who had the house before them died in. She rustles paper bags in the girls bathroom at night.
Funny thing - when she had her open house last month and I was walking through the different rooms, I felt most unwelcome in that one (I didn't know @ the time) and several other people did as well.
hell, the corner at 4th and cedar should be on that list. as we were walking by it one night during a hunt, tc looks at me and says i'm getting a really strong feeling here. i looked at her and said thats becasue that's where the gallows were.
and the story about forepaugh's being haunted is bullshit.
so when standing in line at the pp...make sure you have friends at the front of the line as to not have to stand at the corner when the line gets long ... I'll have to remember to use the "I'm afraid of 4th street can I stand with you" line to stay close to the front...unlike SOME people who just walk up to the front and bribe with schnapps.
However, I don't quite understand how I don't mind being in a park/woods/cemetery in the dark most of the time, it's give some sort of 'high' and I don't mind the cold during a hunt either BUT days like today I can't stand to leave the house - I know I'm a freeze baby so I guess I don't get it. it's bitter cold today :frown:
My old winery has some scary stuff. Many times the temps upstairs would see a woman looking for a phone, cause her car broke down (always wearing green 70's kinda garb) and they would turn around to show her the phone and she would be gone.
Other times, at night we would be locking up and you would feel someone behind you - my boss and I felt it one night and just both started running - we bolted out the door, locked it from the outside, and didn't set the alarm we were so freaked.
another night I went into the cellar during a party to pull some special wine, it wasn't particularly wierd or anything at that point and as I was leaning over to grab two bottles an ice cold hand came down on my back. I seriously screamed my head off and sprinted back to the party. I never went in the cellar alone after that.
my old house on Travis Air Force base was totally haunted. Every night I'd dream about this little girl living in my closet, one week when my husband was home, we were driving, and he tells me - I had the strangest dream last night, this little girl (describes her to a T) lived in our closet... I almost wrecked the car when he told me that.
Also when you would be in the shower, you'd hear combat boots march down the hall, and for no explainable reason, the tv would turn itself on and go to the antique roadshow - or if you were watching something else, it would change to that if it was on.
and if I napped in the daytime, suddenly I'd find myself face down on the floor. - my ducks unlimited clock, which I would set constantly- would suddenly go back to midnight and stay there.
The worst one night, I came home and my puppy had chew some stuff up - I sprayed him with a water bottle and smacked his butt with the hairbrush then went to bed. About an hour later (I had thought it a dream) I was getting attacked by a hairbrush and sprayed with water. When I *woke* I was soaken wet and the brush which had been in the bathroom, was on the floor next to the bed.
theres a lot of people that do. tc and i have been to it several times and she's never felt a thing there, even in the room where molly killed herself.
glensheen... now that's a different story. she'd been up there on a field trip as a wee lass, and told the tour guide a story that they don't tell on the tours.
it goes without saying that in europe, old torture chambers are to be avoided for us :smile:
Both the 6th floor of the St. Paul Travelers building and the 8th floor of the Target Financial Services building were haunted by construction workers who were killed on the job while working on those floors. We had a number of workers who, after having a run-in or two with various noises and disappearing people, would refuse to work on the floor even though it was an easier floor than most. These employees had no idea about the 'lore' either. Same thing for the 8th floor of TFS. On 4 separate occasions from 3 separate departments, the event was explained exactly the same as a grown man would scream at the top of his lungs where it felt like he was right behind you but when you turned around nobody was there. Only to have one more scream occur inside your head as you were leaving the area. All 4 times it happened right next to the same conference room. And these 4 individuals had no idea about the others. That series of episodes happened all within 1 week. And these are people who you know had something happen to them.
I watched that last night,then I changed the channel to Sex in the Bible til I couldn't see straight ~ (no pun intended) most of that Most Haunted show is interesting but I lose interest when they do seances and have the tables move :eyeroll:
I loooove when they catch on video those white, shiney blobby streaky things fly across a room and claim them to be spirits - I believe those
black dalhia got a crap review. I am going to see it cause I've read just about anything and everything I can get my hands on about it. So it will be interesting to see what they do to the movie. I've heard mixed reviews.
I watched part of the sex in the bible thing last night until i became irriated with it, and decided the the E story of something or other.. was better.
You are refering to Orbs, balls of energy that tend to be around either right before or after a ghost is seen. it's like the extra energy and it forms an Orb. although sometimes they are just there by themselves.
orbs- yes, I knew that, sorry, I was in a hurry and I'm not always quick to say the exact word I'm looking for. thanks for following up on me :smile:
feel free to talk death and ghosts here anytime
I watched a movie called Prison something or another last night on Sci-Fi - about ghosts in the Prison - it was really really scary, I put myself in the position of the characters and pretend if it were real what would I do? would I even go there at all? uuuuuh yikes
I also saw the re-make of 13 ghosts --- good movie
haunted prison? I channel checked that on my way to ... crap. What did I watch? ohhh MTV Cribs on the Playboy Mansion, and I also watched the roast of William Shatner.
funny stuff!
Ohh I remember what I watched Sat too.. Richard Pryor - "I'm not $(%*$% dead yet"
my Cat has come back in ghost form Me2. Seriously. His presence is all over the house, and the cats see him, and are a little freaked by it - I personally find it comforting.
I'd agree - Orange = Nerd or practical
but copper... copper is really sexy...
I LOVE the copper on the new Ford Explorer sports.
If I wanted copper, I'd spend some extra and get the paint stripped of, then have it electroplated.
Oh wait.. most of the car is plastic these days...
http://www.minnesotaghosts.com/
http://www.minnesotaparanormalinvestigators.com/
http://prairieghosts.com/
http://www.echobodine.com/
http://www.haunted-places.com/black_forest_haunting.htm
John D. Spalding
We See Dead People
Beliefnet's humorist joins psychic Echo Bodine for a most unusual tour of Minneapolis/St. Paul
In some ways, Echo Bodine and I were like the other couples visiting open houses that Sunday afternoon. We were neatly dressed, we had an itinerary (a carefully studied Minneapolis Star-Tribune real estate section), and we knew exactly what we were looking for. Unlike other couples, however, we weren't interested in location, price, or how well the pipes would hold up come winter. No, we were there to check out strange vibes, inexplicable sounds, white light, and clouds of energy--particularly clouds in a human shape.
In other words, we were looking for dead people--"just looking for ghosts," as Echo flatly told one real estate agent who asked what he could help us find--spirits who, for various reasons, would rather bang around in an attic and scare the bejeezus out of the living than kick back in paradise with departed friends and loved ones.
Echo Bodine is a professional ghostbuster, or "ghost counselor," as she also calls herself. A psychic and a spiritual healer based in the Twin Cities, she talks to ghosts, and often argues with them as she attempts to coax the more stubborn among them "down the tunnel and into the light."
Though she's been featured on shows such as "Sally Jesse Raphael" and NBC's "The Other Side," I discovered Echo through her latest book, "Relax, It's Only a Ghost: My Adventures With Spirits, Hauntings, and Things that Go Bump in the Night." Echo's otherworldly encounters were so deliciously odd, I couldn't set the book down. There was Bill, a policeman ghost who protected the women who worked in a "massage parlor." When Echo confronted him, Bill confessed that he tore down a shower curtain out of anger when he realized a john was a priest.
On another ghostbusting, Echo met a female spirit who had such a crush on a guy (living) that whenever he brought a woman home, the ghost would slap him silly and throw him against a wall. Best of all, the guy was six-foot-three and enjoyed being tossed around by a jealous wraith! To his landlady's dismay, he insisted that if Echo busted his ghost, he'd move. Ultimately, man and ghost remained united.
Wow, I thought, the dead are just as screwed up as the living.
Eager to meet some residents of the Beyond for myself, I called Echo and asked if she would take me ghost hunting. She graciously assented but regretted that she didn't have any jobs at the moment. I proposed we tour open houses. "Cool," she said, and then, after a pause, blurted, "the governor's mansion! I read that Jesse Ventura told a school tour there's a ghost in his kitchen!" I booked a flight to Minneapolis online as we spoke.
I met Echo at the curb outside the governor's residence on Summit Ave. in St. Paul, where she pulled up in a sporty Geo jeep with a "Mean People Suck" bumper sticker affixed to its rear. A tall, pretty blonde, the 51-year-old has a personality to match her car--spunky and fun, not an ounce of pretension. "I feel lots of vibes here," Echo whispered as we entered the English Tudor Revival style mansion. "I mean, lots of vibes!"
The first thing I learned about ghost hunting is that it's difficult to do when you're in a group of 25, being hustled from room to room by a tour guide who seems to fear for her job, or worse, should any of her lambs stray. "It'll be tough to pinpoint a ghost in all this commotion," Echo told me, as we crossed the main foyer. Besides the stream of tours, gubernatorial staffers and other officials were bouncing between several meetings, including, we were told, The Brain, formerly known as The Body. (We didn't see him, but a press aide did verify later that one evening, when he was alone, the governor went to check on a crash in the mansion's kitchen and found dishes all over the floor.)
I gave Echo space to conduct her psychic snooping, which she performed remarkably inconspicuously. Quiet concentration, mostly. If you didn't know better, you'd think she was trying to make out a distant sound or recall a shopping list.
After the tour, we retreated to a restaurant to debrief. "Well," I demanded, as we dug into salads, "what's the verdict?"
"Oh, the place is haunted, all right," Echo said. "There was a ghost on the first floor, beyond the hallway we weren't allowed down." She closed her eyes. "I can see him better here than I could there. He's an older man. He's got white hair, a white beard. He's very content."
As Echo spoke, her eyelids twitched and her head moved slightly side to side. "He's pleased with his house--and he does consider it his house. He likes that important people live there, that history is being made there ... OK, OK," she added, as if responding to a voice only she could hear. "He doesn't care for the tours. He likes dignitaries, the aristocrats--his word--that come and go."
"Why is he there?" I asked.
"Pride in his home," Echo said, eyes still shut. "He just sits there, often by a window, and he watches people pass by. He's probably the original owner." (Horace Hills Irvine, we learned on the tour, a St. Paul attorney who built the place in 1910.) "Uh-huh, yes, I see. He also enjoys having a cigar--or two." Echo's eyes popped open. "We should find out if anybody smells cigar smoke when Jesse Ventura is not in the mansion!"
Did she feel the need to ghostbust him?
"Wouldn't do any good," she said, shaking her head. "He's determined to be there. In fact, most ghosts are, well, I don't know if stupid is the right word, but hardheaded. Immature."
As Echo explained it, "Ghosts are like everybody else. They just happen to be dead." Which means they have unresolved issues, they cling to what they know, and they're slow to recognize what's good for them. "In death as in life, we have the freedom of choice," Echo said. "Most of us step into the light, where our souls continue to evolve, but some remain in this world--ghosts. Some are afraid they might go to hell. Others want to remain close to someone here; others have someone they are afraid to see in heaven, like an abusive parent. Some ghosts don't even know they're dead! It's sad because ghosts are stuck, neither in this life or the afterlife."
The next day was Sunday, and I counted more than 150 open houses listed in the paper. I suggested we pick the neighborhood with the most homes and hit as many as possible. But I'd forgotten who my partner was. "Let me look that over while you enjoy your coffee," Echo said, taking the paper. Fifteen minutes later, she'd selected three homes--"the ones I got the strongest feelings about."
Our first stop was a "comfortable starter" in Minneapolis' Richfield section. Before we got out of the car, Echo said, "I think we should look in the basement." We offered a quick "hello" to the agent as we headed downstairs. In a corner, we found a workbench, above which hung a row of empty baby-food jars for nails and screws. "There he is," Echo said.
"Who, where?"
"A spirit--an old, stale spirit, definitely dead--right in front of the bench." She traced a spot in the air. "He spent a lot of time down here when he was alive. He doesn't care about the rest of the house--others claimed that. This was his space."
I looked, I squinted, but I couldn't see a thing.
"He's not here this minute," Echo added. "But his energy is, and it's fresh. He stays here and one other place he likes to spend a lot of time in."
"The American Legion Hall?" I offered.
Echo shot me a startled look. "You're probably right. And there's one nearby!"
At the American Legion Hall, Echo stopped still in the doorway--to adjust her eyes, I assumed, to the cave-like darkness. "Oooh," she said, grimacing, "this place is crawling with vibes." (I noticed something equally disturbing, a flier by the door that read: "Meat Raffle...every Thursday, 6 to 8 p.m.") We bought Cokes at the bar and sat at a table as far from the smoke and strange looks as we could get. After five minutes, we couldn't take it any longer. "Well, no ghosts there," Echo said, gulping fresh air outside. "Just a lot of macho vibes and bravado."
We pulled up in front of a one-and-a-half-story house and stared at it. "Yup, there's a spirit in there," Echo said, still gripping the wheel. "I can feel it. It's a woman. She's on the first floor, in the back, directly beyond the front door. Bet she's in the kitchen."
Damned (so to speak) if we didn't open the door to a hallway that led straight to the kitchen. "She's here," Echo whispered, making a circle in front of the kitchen sink. "It's definitely the spirit of an older woman. Probably a previous owner, now dead."
Touring the house, I tried to tap my own powers. Each room was a showcase of knick-knacks, floral prints, and hand-knitted afghans, pillow covers, place mats, and throw rugs. A lace-covered side table displayed a half-dozen porcelain religious figures. The television was at least 30 years old. I had to agree with Echo. I, too, detected the spirit of an older woman.
The real estate agent stopped us at the door. "She's eager to sell," he said. "She's the original owner, and she's reached that point where she can no longer manage the place by herself."
I tried to think of a way of broaching the possibility of a glitch in her reading of the ghost in the kitchen, but before I could, Echo cleared it all up. "Very interesting," she said. "I bet that woman is taking a nap somewhere."
"Huh?"
"When you nap, the soul can leave your body," she explained. "That woman's soul came back to the sink to watch. She's very protective of the house, and I can tell you this--she's not seen any buyers she likes yet."
I'll admit, there's much about the spirit world I don't get. For starters, how consciousness can exist without a living body to feed it. Even more confusing to me is communication with the dead, which entails the living tapping into the "high-frequency vibrations" of the non-living's "energy." No matter how many times I try to wrap my brain around that cosmology, I always wind up cross-eyed.
Still, before I left, Echo gave me a psychic reading that blew me away--creepily accurate details about my life, my concerns and aspirations, she couldn't have guessed. If she's always that good, she's worth whatever she charges. When I asked how she knew this information, Echo said she channeled it through her spirit guide, Lilli, who had consulted my two spirit guides, Jasper and Charlene, friends from my past lives as a Scottish soldier and a German goat farmer. I'm not sure which stunned me most: that I have spirit guides, that I've had past lives, or that I'm probably the first person in the history of reincarnation who wasn't Leonardo da Vinci or Napoleon.
The last house we visited was an unkempt rambler in south Minneapolis. "I don't like the vibes of this place," Echo said, as we waded across the uncut lawn to the front door. Inside, the place was long and narrow, dark and gloomy. Echo stuck her head into the doorway of the back bedroom and jumped back. "Oh my gosh," she gasped. "There's something terrible in there!" She disappeared around the corner. I looked in and saw a small room, empty except for a bed.
Echo called me down to the basement to explain: "I saw images of violence in that room. Physical, maybe even sexual. Let's go."
The real estate agent stopped us at the door, and Echo came clean, telling him that she was a psychic drawn to the house by her intuition. To our surprise, the agent replied with total sincerity that he was fascinated by psychic phenomena. He gave Echo his card, saying he knew of some places that may be haunted if she was curious. Then, making sure no one else was around, he asked Echo what she found. She said there was something creepy about one of the rooms in the back.
"Oh, I know," he said, nodding. "The bedroom."
Then he added, and I'm not making this up: "That's probably the room in which the old man whacked himself."
Echo and I looked at each other, eyes the size of Frisbees.
"I'm not saying anything happened, of course," he added quickly. "Let's just say there's lots of speculation."
Well, yeah. Speculation was the order of the day. Standing in a grubby subdivision house talking about a guy offing himself in the back room, I realized I'd had my fill and was ready to ferry home across the River Styx. Echo and the real estate agent had settled in for a long chat. I eased open the screen door and snuck back to the car to wait.
actually, that boy could paint anything, self included and i'd be happy..
the talent is amazing!
I'm waiting until he's done shooting in Joplin, and returns to his shop in LA for a few days, and then I have a plan...
heh.
Connie Nelson
Home & Garden Editor
Published Oct. 31, 2002 HOUS31
A door suddenly slams, shattering the silence in an empty room. A TV blares on, as if by itself. Car keys left on the kitchen counter disappear, only to be found later in the shower. The sound of muffled voices filters down from the attic.
House hoax -- or haunting?
That was an easy question for Virginia Van Dusen to decide. In fact, she wasn't surprised to learn that her Minneapolis home was haunted. Over the years, several family members had reported ghostly behavior -- the sound of footsteps, unexplainable problems with appliances, small items missing.
What did surprise her was that ghostbuster Carol Lowell said she had discovered 12 ghosts in the 101-year-old house. (Lowell banished most of the ghosts, including a family of four who she said died of the plague in 1910, but allowed one ghost to remain, with Van Dusen's blessing.)
"I have never been afraid of ghosts," said Van Dusen, who has since shared some of her ghost stories in her neighborhood newspaper. "In these old Kenwood homes, I'll bet there are a lot of ghosts out there. You know, a lot of theaters are haunted, too. It's just the way it is."
From incredible to credible
Almost everyone loves a good ghost story, especially on Halloween. But it now seems that an increasing number of people believe them. Skeptics and psychics alike say acceptance of ghosts and other paranormal phenomena has grown.
Echo Bodine, a well-known Twin Cities psychic, author and longtime ghostbuster, calls the current interest in ghosts "unbelievable. It's like the interest has tripled," she said.
Sheryl Grassie, a local ghost writer, ghostbuster and a former student of Bodine's, agreed.
"The evolution of people's attitude is amazing," Grassie said. "There's something in the consciousness that ghosts are real."
Although Michael Schermer acknowledged that there has been a gradual change in attitude since the 1960s, he wouldn't call it an evolution. And instead of being amazed, he's dismayed. Schermer, author of "Why People Believe Weird Things" and founder of the Skeptics Society, considers ghosts and spirits "paranormal nonsense." But he said he understands the reason some people grasp at easy, other-worldly explanations for what may seem like mysteries.
"The idea of a transcendent spirit is ingrained in the human psyche," he said. "We are pattern-seeking, storytelling animals trying to make sense of the world."
Still, he called belief in ghosts "an assault on critical thinking. If you believe in that, what else are you willing to believe?" he asked.
The scientific spirit
John Savage considers himself somewhat of a skeptic, too. He's also the founder of the Minnesota Paranormal Investigative Group. Savage's group is affiliated with other national and international ghost "research" organizations that claim to use scientific methods to prove -- or disprove -- the existence of ghosts.
Armed with digital and video cameras, tape recorders and other more exotic tools of the trade (electromagnetic field meters, thermal guns and Geiger counters), group members inspect reportedly haunted homes to find scientific evidence of ghosts.
"Nine times out of ten, there's usually an explanation," said Savage.
But that doesn't mean he doesn't believe in ghosts. On the contrary. "They (ghosts) do exist and they are definitely quite active," he said.
But just what they are is not widely agreed upon.
Dave Oester, founder of the International Ghost Hunters Society, takes a fairly benevolent view.
"Ghosts are an extension of life after death," he said. "They have intelligence and emotions and personalities the same as when they were alive. The only thing they don't have is a physical body."
According to Oester, ghosts don't haunt, can't be seen and shouldn't be "busted" because most often are "loved ones and family members coming back to watch over you."
Bodine begs to differ. She believes ghosts are spirits of people who have died but have not passed over to the other side, that they often have no relation to the people they haunt and that they can wreak havoc on a household for no better reason than that they are bored. She sees them, talks to them and usually convinces them to leave.
Frightfully friendly
However, there are a couple of points on which many ghost aficionados agree: The vast majority of ghosts, while frightening, aren't dangerous. (The horrible ghost is largely a product of Hollywood, they said.) And although ghosts may roam cemeteries, theaters, saloons and train stations, they seem to take up residence in houses -- and not necessarily old or spooky-looking ones, at that.
Oester suggested that ghosts make themselves at home in homes because when they were human "most spirits lived in houses of one kind or another and they're going to live in a house as a ghost."
But Pat Linse, co-founder of the Skeptics Society, has a different take on haunted houses. She said people sometimes use ghosts "as a way to act out whatever conflicts there are in the family."
A door suddenly slams. A TV clicks on. Car keys disappear. House hoax -- or haunting?
Linse, of course, would call it a hoax. But then she adds: "There's a lot of fun to be had in ghost stories."
-- Connie Nelson is at cnelson@startribune.com.
Funny thing - when she had her open house last month and I was walking through the different rooms, I felt most unwelcome in that one (I didn't know @ the time) and several other people did as well.
she is working on a banishing right now.
kinda nice.
seriously there's a mouse or two in my room, I've been doing everything I can think of to get rid of it too.
WORK GOOD
YOU COULD TRY TOSSING A SOMETHING SHINEY IN THE MIDDLE OF IT...LIKE TINFOIL
MICE ARE LIKE GUYS...WE LIKE SHINEY.
no, her 6 year old told her the other day that the lady from ghostbusters was hanging out in her room.
The 6 year old hasn't seen that movie in like a year. it's creepy, and there is definately wierd energy in the house.
http://theshadowlands.net/places/minnesota.htm
I swear some weard crap goes on in those buildings...
and the story about forepaugh's being haunted is bullshit.
they have a radio show
so when standing in line at the pp...make sure you have friends at the front of the line as to not have to stand at the corner when the line gets long ... I'll have to remember to use the "I'm afraid of 4th street can I stand with you" line to stay close to the front...unlike SOME people who just walk up to the front and bribe with schnapps.
However, I don't quite understand how I don't mind being in a park/woods/cemetery in the dark most of the time, it's give some sort of 'high' and I don't mind the cold during a hunt either BUT days like today I can't stand to leave the house - I know I'm a freeze baby so I guess I don't get it. it's bitter cold today :frown:
I know something you can drink that'll warm you right up. :wink:
You can find me at the front of the line :smile:
Other times, at night we would be locking up and you would feel someone behind you - my boss and I felt it one night and just both started running - we bolted out the door, locked it from the outside, and didn't set the alarm we were so freaked.
another night I went into the cellar during a party to pull some special wine, it wasn't particularly wierd or anything at that point and as I was leaning over to grab two bottles an ice cold hand came down on my back. I seriously screamed my head off and sprinted back to the party. I never went in the cellar alone after that.
Also when you would be in the shower, you'd hear combat boots march down the hall, and for no explainable reason, the tv would turn itself on and go to the antique roadshow - or if you were watching something else, it would change to that if it was on.
and if I napped in the daytime, suddenly I'd find myself face down on the floor. - my ducks unlimited clock, which I would set constantly- would suddenly go back to midnight and stay there.
The worst one night, I came home and my puppy had chew some stuff up - I sprayed him with a water bottle and smacked his butt with the hairbrush then went to bed. About an hour later (I had thought it a dream) I was getting attacked by a hairbrush and sprayed with water. When I *woke* I was soaken wet and the brush which had been in the bathroom, was on the floor next to the bed.
scary stuff.
glensheen... now that's a different story. she'd been up there on a field trip as a wee lass, and told the tour guide a story that they don't tell on the tours.
it goes without saying that in europe, old torture chambers are to be avoided for us :smile:
I read the msg board about it as well.
The place is about 10 miles from my BF's house, but right down the street from one of his friends.. Going to go check it out next time I'm in Sac.
I somehow have now moved on to reading about the black dahlia...
chilling as well. I can't believe the crime scene photos they used to print in the 1940's
http://www.haunted-places.com/index.html
and I've been wasting the day away.. with
www.asylumcam.com
most of that Most Haunted show is interesting but I lose interest when they do seances and have the tables move :eyeroll:
I loooove when they catch on video those white, shiney blobby streaky things fly across a room and claim them to be spirits - I believe those
I can't wait to see Black Dahlia!!!
I watched part of the sex in the bible thing last night until i became irriated with it, and decided the the E story of something or other.. was better.
You are refering to Orbs, balls of energy that tend to be around either right before or after a ghost is seen. it's like the extra energy and it forms an Orb. although sometimes they are just there by themselves.
feel free to talk death and ghosts here anytime
I watched a movie called Prison something or another last night on Sci-Fi - about ghosts in the Prison - it was really really scary, I put myself in the position of the characters and pretend if it were real what would I do? would I even go there at all? uuuuuh yikes
I also saw the re-make of 13 ghosts --- good movie
and the original The Haunting
funny stuff!
Ohh I remember what I watched Sat too.. Richard Pryor - "I'm not $(%*$% dead yet"
good stuff.
http://www.vh1.com/shows/dyn/flavor_of_love_2/108104/episode.jhtml
http://www.vh1.com/shows/dyn/flavor_of_love_2/series_about.jhtml
I occasionally watch, cause it's just so.. um... out there?
A man said to his wife one day, "I don't know how you can be so stupid and so beautiful all at the same time.
"The wife responded, "Allow me to explain. God made me beautiful so you would be attracted to me; God made me stupid so I would be attracted to you!