Journal of a Paranormal Mind: Year Two

 

Rain Graves

Thursday, September 27, 2012-5:47 p.m.

Welcome… Enter Freely and of Your Own Will

Most of the attendees have arrived and are settling into their rooms or marveling at the booze table and reading the absinthe labels. I have taken Polaroids of each person to help others remember names…and just in case someone goes missing. I will give the tour of the house and its hot spots to the newbies in a few minutes, before dinner.

The GhostGirls arrive tomorrow. We will put Kristin in the room on the third floor where Sèphera and I did our tarot readings in 2010, where so many EVPs answering our direct questions were recorded.

Friday, September 28, 2012-10:36 a.m.

When They Tell You Something Important

Nothing of any importance happened to Sèphera and me last night. We switched rooms from the Black Mass Room to the old main floor apartment in the very back of the house, where the original Mistress of the Mansion spent her later years.

After breakfast, Sèphera decided to take a shower. I plugged in my old Palm Pre device that I keep for one reason: a piece of software called Spirit Box. People often scoff at these things, as they tend to be just random word generators, but Spirit Box has worked for me, as a medium, in valuable ways.

When the spirits manipulate their energy to speak into a device (in this case, a mobile phone without a data or service connection), the EVPs come through on the screen as text and the program speaks the word aloud. When I tell spirits to come one at a time and focus their energy, sometimes intelligent things will string together, relevant to the questions we ask. Several such things happened this morning.

“Do you have anything to say to us? For the people in this room?”

“CALL…DAD…USE…PHONE.”

“Call my dad? Is he okay? Whose dad do you mean?”

I went outside to phone my father, who was at the Home Depot, happily purchasing random manly things while my stepmother was out of town.

After I walked out, it also said “ANN.” My husband’s mother’s name is Ann. When I returned and told the spirit my father was fine, I asked if there was something I should know. Why was it speaking about a father and why were we instructed to call?

It responded, “DAD…HEALTH.”

Later, I pointed the device toward Wes and asked: “Do you have anything to say to Weston?”

“DAD. ALEX.”

Weston is indeed a dad and his daughter’s name is Alex. It also identified the word “GOBLIN” several times in reference to Wes and Yvonne. They have a dog named Goblin.

As I paid less attention to the device and more attention to writing this blog post, it said: “WRITE…ABOUT…DEAD…FOUR.”

There were six of us in the room at that time; four of us were writing on our laptops. I was halfway through this post, writing about dead folks.

“FUN WEEKEND” also came up. And then: “SARAH…STORY.”

“Is anyone writing a story with a character named Sarah?” I asked.

“Oh, my gosh!” Rena said. “I am! Right now!”

Later it said “SARAH” again and “READ.” I told Rena it was saying the name of her character and asked the spirit, “What about Sarah?”

It said, “SISTER.” Rena explained she was also writing another story involving the character of Sarah’s sister.

Quite impressive for this type of software, I must say. Unlike the “Ghost Radar” tools for the modern Android, Spirit Box actually works. Maybe it matters if the user is a sensitive. We’ll probably use this tool later, in conjunction with a digital voice recorder (DVR). The GhostGirls arrive at 2:00 p.m. Perhaps they can make light of the new evidence we collect.

Friday, September 28, 2012-7:39 p.m.

The Calm Before the Storm

Ghost-hunters are hunting. Writers are writing. Everyone seems well and happy. I did an initial tarot reading on the third floor with a DVR running. As far as I can tell, there may be minimal, if any results. It wasn’t until I began asking questions about the infamous priest and his crime (referenced from the 2010 evidence) that I heard faint responses, but my lack of good headphones wasn’t helping. I will pass the file over to the GhostGirls for analysis and try again later.

Saturday, September 29, 2012-1:08 a.m.

Some Things are Hard to Put into Words

I can’t talk about it right now. It was too surreal and too…terrifyingly typical of every horror movie you have ever seen about possession. I’m not joking. Thank gods there was no pea soup.

Loren, Stacey, and Dan are all sleeping in the safe zone tonight, on the bottom floor. Lots of the others have taken to drink so they will pass out and not have any experiences in the night. I am just tired. Too tired to care. And completely sober.

It dragged Dan like a dog with a big bone. I saw it. I helped to pull him out. It fought me. I won. For now…

Saturday, September 29, 2012-10:48 a.m.

Don’t Go into the Light, Carol-Dan!

[Disclaimer: Even as I read this at 10:30 the next day, I realize how ridiculous it all sounds. Hokey might even be the better word. I expect the usual skepticism and sarcasm…maybe even some downright mean comments from hecklers, but I assure you, my skin is thick. This was real. It happened. It’s hard to process and even harder to look back on and not feel as if it was all a bad dream, or a bad horror movie].

I encounter all sorts of things as an intuitive medium: some good, some bad, some neutral, some elemental, some not at all human, and some that I can only categorize as “nothingness that is something.”

As a priestess in the Temple of Isis and Fellowship of Isis, I am trained to work within a variety of useful stations to mankind, usually in a helpful capacity. I always work with energy, sometimes with nothing but love and compassion, like helping someone deal with the death of a loved one. I didn’t choose this path; it chose me.

Tonight was the kind of energy I never, ever want to have to work with. Period. Not even for educational purposes. I find myself at a significant loss for words, even now, trying to describe it. I will try my best to start at the beginning and put one word after another.

There is nothing negative here at the mansion—not in so far as what a medium knows is negative through all six senses. We talked about the “No Ouija boards” rule during the presentation GhostGirls gave; how you never want to open a portal that can’t close. You never want to invite anything in.

You can invite communication, but it ends there. Make it clear that nothing may attach itself to you, nothing may follow you home, and nothing may come into your person in order to communicate; your body is a temple that is sacred. It is your own. Nothing may invade it or compromise its life force, energy, or sense of self.

As a medium, I set clear boundaries (and protections) with any communication. Any entity wishing to talk may do so within those limits. If I say, “You may touch me, but you may not harm me,” that is a boundary. If I say, “I invite you to communicate with me using these devices. You may gather energy from whatever batteries or electricity may be in the room to manifest,” the boundary is set to keep it from trying to take energy from me in order to manifest.

I tell them what is acceptable. Most of the time, they comply, eager to reach out when they learn how it works and know they won’t be harmed in the process.

We touched on boundaries and limits during the presentation. Questions were asked and answered, but perhaps…not enough.

Later in the evening, Sèphera, Nikki, Diane, Kristin, and I were preparing for an EVP session on the third floor. Sèphera and I were using our skills as tarot readers to help answer questions while the devices recorded, just as we did in 2010.

Nikki experienced a sudden headache and dizziness in another room on that floor, which she had to leave immediately. We chose to investigate that room next. We had good interactions with a male child’s spirit that was exploring communication with the two flashlights we had placed on the floor, answering yes and no questions, turning the lights on and off when prompted, and touching a pad of paper that imprints, so that a handprint may be visible for a while after it is placed there. We saw a small child’s hand faintly, as the handprint lingered on the paper for a few moments.

After we were done, I headed back down to our former room (the Black Mass Room), where other devices were set up to capture any activity that might occur. With Chris Marrs, Lisa Morton, and my trusty DVR, we began a new EVP session.

Scott and Weston soon joined us, but as they clambered into the tiny room, Sèphera began yelling for me from the third floor. “We need you! Come quick!”

I moved into the hall and asked what was wrong. Seph said “Something’s got Dan—like a poltergeist. We need a priestess. Come quick!” She was serious.

Barring all stupid jokes you are now conjuring in your mind, I take that request seriously anytime it arises. Something was wrong. I can’t tell you why, but I knew I could help. I ran upstairs and found Sèphera in another corner room, asking me to help Dan. Something was trying to possess him; it was pulling him under the bed against his will.

I can only tell you what I saw: a young, intelligent, 6′2″ man with strength and agility, desperately trying to push himself out from under the bed, clutching the frame with a terror I don’t think I’ve ever seen on a man’s face.

Something had Dan’s other arm and was dragging him like a predator with prey…under. Why under? There was nothing under that bed or past it, but a corner.

I had the advantage. I can’t tell you why or how, but I knew what to do.

In my mind’s eye, I could see the thing. It was like a medium-sized dog with a bone (but with limbs like a person and an oversized head that was too big for its spindly body) growling and pulling, greedy and hungry. It did not belong in this house. It was not part of this house. Someone had let it in and that pissed me off.

I yelled as forcefully and as loud as I could, in my best conjuring of Sekhmet, to GET OUT. I told it that it had no power here. I felt an otherworldly calm and strength in this duty. I had no doubt in my mind or spirit that I could not right things. I could feel it fighting with me—a tug of war with energy—and since it was smaller than me, I made myself bigger in energy and kept staking my claim.

It kept dragging Dan.

I held on to pull him out. The others helped. It was very difficult, but we finally freed him. Dan was trying so hard to just crawl toward the door to get out of the room. It was trying to drag him back by the leg. He kept saying he needed to get out the room. Then he couldn’t speak at all. It was climbing and clawing into him, somehow. I can’t explain what that looked like to me, not in a way that was how it really was.

I can only use the analogy of what a bug looks like when it’s flipped on its back, helpless, limbs treading water in the sky, stuck. That was Dan. As it tried to grab him by the foot and pull him back to the bed, I sat down on top of him. I put my hand on his heart and pushed that entity away with the other. I said he was mine. It had no dominion here; it had no power. By all my anointment and ancestry, it must leave.

I threatened it that if it did not leave, I could make it suffer unspeakably. I could harm it. I could make it go back to wherever it escaped from. They typically don’t want to do that, those kinds of things. I kicked it away from him. I gathered up all my earth’s core energy through my feet and I pushed with a great wall of energy, hard.

As I stood up and put myself between the entity and Dan, my arms and body felt like ice. As its energy came in contact with my own, I kept pushing, all hairs on end. I knew it was working. I knew somehow it couldn’t harm me, couldn’t get past my protection or claim. I backed it up and pushed it out the open window.

I banished it, as I have done so many times before when dealing with negative entities in House Cleansings. I then pushed out the residual energy, which I can only describe as a lingering flickering of negative ions, kind of like a glimmering slime, but without mass. I wafted it toward the window, as one might do with a bad odor. I had to wonder what they others were witnessing, since all this would have been invisible to the naked eye; I was viewing it from my Third Eye. They couldn’t see the entity, but they could feel it pulling back against their own tugging on Dan and see the opaque shadows, I was sure.

The room lightened and the heaviness was gone. It had fled, but I knew it would come back for Round Two. It wouldn’t give up so easily. Pulling out the big guns, however, made sure it did not want to contend with me. It was easier for it to go around me, and the house itself, to find another way back in.

~

Dan was having trouble breathing, still on the floor under one of my feet as I stood against the entity. I took my foot away, bent down to say a few prayers over him to steady his energy and ground him, then we all helped him to his feet and got him out of that room.

He was very shaken up. We took him to the ground floor. He immediately wanted to walk out the front door, but I would not let him go. I had pushed the entity out and it was waiting for him there. I could feel it wanting him, coaxing him to come outside.

We sat him in a chair by the open door. It came at him again, trying to take over his body. He was writhing unnaturally. Again there was terror in his eyes, like a deer in headlights. I don’t know what to do, he seemed to say. I will never forget that look on his face.

I gathered all my earth’s core energy again and enlisted the help of his brother Steve, who is a gifted energy worker (little had I known) to focus white healing light in a protection bubble around him. I spoke the protections aloud again, claiming him as ours, calling on ancestors, holy spirits, and all the Egyptian Gods I work with.

I sprinkled him with sea salt. The entity made Dan writhe as it tried hard to keep hold of him. Dan seemed to come up off the chair. I sat on top of him again, like a chair, facing the way he faced, and used my body as a blanket of my protection and energy. It would not pass into him. I pushed the rest of its energy out and away. It was leaving reluctantly. Then, suddenly, it was out the door.

I sprinkled the sea salt on the threshold and banished it to the outdoors. We got Dan some water, kept him focused on the task of hydration and replenishing his own sense of self. I made him repeat his own name over and over again, reiterating that he recognized he was himself.

~

Why had I not brought frankincense, sage, or sweet grass? Where was my cedar? All at home. I had seen no need to bring it. There is nothing negative in the house. I had only brought lavender from my Fey garden, sea salt, and some tobacco for blessings.

As we sat him down on the sofa in the safe zone, I made Dan continue to repeat who he was, over and over, and showed him how to push the negative energy out of himself, while grounding him firmly to the earth, drawing on Sekhmet’s lioness energy to combat the overwhelming feelings of being overcome. Win the battle. Win the war. She is good for those kinds of things.

This was a lesser entity and we were lucky it was not stronger. Young, like an adolescent: a non-human striving to move up the food chain by attacking an easy target, someone with no known protections, inviting it in, innocently wishing to experience first contact with the unknown. The best of intentions gone horribly wrong.

As we continued to set Dan to rights, he could feel it beckoning to him to come outside. He used his own energy to tell it no; it made him stronger and gave him the feeling that he could fight it off himself. Knowledge is power. Self-knowledge is infinite power.

I could feel it pacing, just outside the glass, on the front porch. It was like an angry child that has had a toy taken away from it for misbehaving. It did not want to contend with me or the protections I had put into place. It would not come near me and it would not come into the house again. I gave Dan a blessing from the goddesses helping me. Sometimes I forget that I am a priestess, and that’s what we’re supposed to do. That it works. That it’s supposed to.

~

Dan may have future battles with this entity, testing the waters of his strength until it grows bored and leaves him alone, because it chose to attach to him, like a hitchhiker. We have armed him with knowledge and tools to keep himself protected, and still be open to communication, if he chooses, with the paranormal. He is reticent at the moment. Pretty much done.

I am tired. I am sleepy. I don’t want to go to sleep alone. I don’t want to be messed with in my sleep. I am not placing the DVR in our room tonight because, quite frankly, I’ve had enough communication. I don’t give a damn what they have to say anymore.

I am surprised this happened. It was a fluke. And one I’d really rather not revisit ever again. I consider myself lucky that it was not bigger and stronger and harder to fight. I should tell you that in everyday life, Dan is happy-go-lucky, shy but gentlemanly, a genuine individual with absolutely no penchant for drama or bullshitty comments, actions, or carriage. He was not himself. He did not fake it. No one was faking anything.

It feels ridiculous. Surreal. Completely out of the ordinary.

Sunday, September 30, 2012-12:53 a.m.

Reflecting, Refracting, Reconnecting

Saturday was a process, I think, for everyone to try and understand the events of Friday night. We were all concerned for Dan, but he was indeed 100% Dan today. We sent him on an excursion to the Open Secret Bookstore in San Rafael to collect some things that will help protect him on the journey of this experience: frankincense, sweet grass, sage. I will be instructing him on their uses.

I was feeling cranky, maybe even anti-social. That can be bad for a hostess “in retrograde,” as it were. I felt the need for fresh air and a sense of connection to something outside the house: the earth, the trees, the wildlife in the hills.

After lunch, I went for a walk along the trails with Scott. We met up with GhostGirls Nikki and Kristin, who were with Wes and Sèphera, joking and laughing in the giant limestone mass piled in a valley between redwoods, just up from the pond.

I was reflecting about the events and how I would pick them apart to understand them, or if I should just let go of them all together. I turned my brain off for a bit after breaking off from the others to hike up into the hills on my own. It was refreshing to just put one foot in front of the other and commune with nature. I reached a ridge that overlooked Mill Valley. I could see the bay to my right, the house down below to my left, and over my shoulder was Mount Tamalpais, twin-peaking upward and touching the sky. Such a lofty goal, that air up there.

When I got back, it was just about time for dinner. I finished listening to the DVR recordings I made yesterday, in the hours leading up to Dan’s incident. I was reluctant to listen to the recording of the ten minutes I spent in the Black Mass Room, but I’m really glad I did.

Through the noise-canceling headphones, I could hear a female spirit trying desperately to get our attention. She says in a breathy whisper, “Help,” when Scott came into the room. Just after Wes did the same, a very clear and completely female voice says “Help!” in a short burst. Then again, “Heeeelp!” just before Sèphera calls down from the third floor, trying to get me to come upstairs to help Dan.

When I finally realized I needed to go right then and there, I apologized to the spirits and told them I had to leave. That woman’s voice became insistent and urgent: “Go NOW…LET’S GO!”

That ghost was helping us to help Dan. She knew she could communicate with these devices and she was trying so hard to make us hear her. I wonder, if we had all shut up, if we could have really heard her voice in that room insisting we go. It overlapped our own, but was separated somehow—very close to the recorder.

William helped tremendously to isolate out some of the noise using a program on his computer, but we still kept the raw files for the GhostGirls to analyze later. He heard it all, too. It was fascinating.

~

Today I pulled out the Spirit Box application again and charged the device, setting it back on the table as I went about checking email. I told any spirit in the room that wanted to connect to just jump into our conversations at any time. Most of what it said was nonsensical.

Then the Spirit Box started stringing words together that seemed more important and related. It began to say words like “PICTURE…” with other words in between.

I asked, “What about the picture? Where is it?”

“MIDDLE…FLOOR.”

I asked, “One of the pictures on the second floor?”

Then it said, “MY WORK” and “LOOK.”

So I went up to the second floor, around the rooms, through hallways, searching for pictures on the wall that might have a signed artist’s name, or similar markings indicating the names of people in the black-and-white photos. I returned to the Spirit Box and said, “I found pictures and paintings by different people: Laura…Balk…and another one. Plus some black-and-white pictures. But I don’t know which one is yours.”

It replied, “BLACK…TOO…” and “UNDER…MARGARET.”

I said I didn’t know who Margaret was, so it would be too hard to figure out who it was without knowing who she was.

It said, “BLOOD…ONLY.”

I replied, “Blood? Is Margaret your only kin? Does that mean you are not part of the family in the pictures on the wall?” Most of them are of the couple who owned the Mansion.

It replied again, “FOLLOW…TELL…FOLLOW…”

So I decided to experiment. I picked up the Palm Pre and told the spirit to lead the way. We went into the foyer, where the GhostGirls (Nikki, Diane, and Kristin) were packing up. I paused to say goodbye again. The Spirit Box said, “GHOST…PEOPLE…THREE…”

GhostGirls. Three of them.

At one point it said, “LAUGH” as we were all joking.

They began loading out their equipment and it said, “FOLLOW” again, so I headed up the stairs to the second floor.

When I got there, I said, “Okay. I’m going to hold this in front of each of these pictures. Say something to stop me when I get to yours.”

As I went down the long hall, I stopped at each set of photographs and paused. Nothing. When I got to the end of that hall and paused in front of the last photo, it said “TURN.” I turned the only way I could—to the left, and went in front of more pictures down that hall. When I got to the end of that hall again and paused, it said “RIGHT.” I could have gone right or left. I went to the right, into the newly renovated wing that had not been open to us in 2010.

It said, “BLOOD…CARPET…BLOOD…ROUND,” which makes no sense to you, dear reader, but was a reference to an earlier session I did with Wes and Scott in Gretchen’s room, where it said it was looking for blood under a carpet. Something was also said via the device about suicide and a knife. I presumed it showed me this was the area of carpet-covered blood, because we exclaimed in a joking way that most of the Mansion was carpeted, so how would we find out where the bloodstain was covered with carpet?

I continued into the first room in that wing and then the second, which had a fireplace with a mantel. A photograph perched on top. I went to that photograph first.

The Spirit Box said, “SAME.” I knew that this must be the picture of his work and, perhaps, him. The small frame held two black-and-white photos. The top photo showed this Mansion as it was being built. Only the building’s frame stood at the time.

Below it was a photograph of a Victorian couple in a horse-drawn wagon. The photo was too small and taken from a distance, so I couldn’t make out who the couple was. It did not strike me as the man and wife who commissioned the house to be built. Above the couple in the wagon was a tall, freestanding sign with the name of the company founded by the man who owned the Mansion, his name, and under it “Real Estate Co.”

I thought then that the ghost in question could be the famous architect who designed this home. Perhaps the man and woman in the buggy were the architect and his wife. I am purposely withholding that name, because it might be too obvious what mansion in Mill Valley we are talking about if I mention it. It’s an interesting possibility that may require more research. I could be wrong, however, and it the people in the photo could be the couple who commissioned the Mansion.

Sunday, September 30, 2012-10:29 a.m.

Serenity

I had a conversation with Lisa this morning about her post regarding the “other” kind of energy. She reflected that there is so much positive about this experience, that people should see how incredibly beautiful this place really is. That the retreat serves its original purpose, as much as the “experiencing of the unknown” purpose. People have been writing all weekend long. All day long. The creative process is quirky, at best, but no one seemed to have any trouble with their flow.

Originally I had planned to get some backlogged work done; I owed edits for the story “Star Light, Star Bright” for Tales from the House Band volume 2, and I finished them here. The best part about working in a room full of writers sitting on comfy couches, in nerd nooks, and alcoves of a giant great room is that you can bounce ideas off each other and ask for opinions.

I knew there were issues, even with the final draft, and I asked if anyone was interested in reading it. Lisa took the bait and offered some great suggestions to polish the few areas needing a shine. After implementing her suggestions, I was satisfied with the result.

I had planned to work on a seed story I began for a vampire anthology with a deadline of November 1st. However, I was inspired to begin another story entirely. And I did. The words didn’t just flow: they spilled forth like a flooded creek, overtaking the page, nourishing the wild word.

I didn’t get to the two sets of galleys I had to review, but that’s okay. I got a lot done. As you can see by my lengthy posts, I was doing the “write what happened next” exercise without thinking about it. The serenity of this place, with its great redwood trees enveloping the house like a warm hug, the peaceful song of a forest alive with life, and the absence of city soot, bum urine, loud cars and even louder buses and cable cars, made it all worth the trip.

Hanging with like-minded intellectuals, believers and skeptics alike, all with one thing in common—the love of writing—was wonderful. That is what I came for most of all. That is what I got, more than the otherworldly experiences of paranormal anomaly.

You get well-grounded here. Nature gives you that. The house is welcoming, too. The rooms are beautiful, the staff courteous and care-taking—not just accommodating. The food is wonderful. The air is good and clean. It’s actually very relaxing to just spend four days doing nothing but eating, writing, sleeping, and dreaming. I know that everyone here feels the same way, despite so much paranormal activity.

I feel connected to the paranormal things here. I feel very much a part of the house, as I have always felt. I was never scared, not even during the experience Dan had and what I had to do to help. It was nothing that would make me not want to do this again, or not want to come back.

I feel myself already looking forward to 2014. Before I arrived, I wasn’t sure I wanted to plan another retreat. It was a lot of work, but incredibly worth it. I feel reset, replenished, recharged. My well of creativity is no longer dry—it is vast and overflowing. I am thankful. I am happy. I am reluctant to leave…

Yesterday, when I posted, I forgot to tell you all about one of my favorite positive experiences here—the others were enjoying the deer on the front lawn, grazing at night. Earlier that day, I had a visit from a very large and very curious dragonfly. It came into the house by the side door where we had been sitting on the couch, but ducked behind the end table as if seeing me made it cautious to be seen itself.

“It’s okay, come on out,” I said.

It flitted up and looked quizzically at my computer screen, which was in front of where I was standing, then flew over in front of me as Chris Colvin watched. I said hello to it and it came closer, stopping at my knee, just one inch from my body. Then it landed there—and rested. I said, “Thank you! What a blessing! That’s so great!” After a second more, it rose again, and went curiously on, looking at the others across the room, one by one, from a distance, and then flying into the other room as if to see what more it could see.

It was green, olive, and gold, with a body about four to five inches long, and a wingspan of about four inches as well. Pretty big. Not as big as they had been in prehistory; his ancestors had wingspans of four feet…not inches. Weston said it was trying to eat me.

I am where the wild things are.

Rain (on right) leads the welcome tour.