Posted on 10/27/2009 11:10:27 AM PDT by Debacled
With Halloween only a few days away, discussion of the paranormal is a staple of the creepy holiday each year.
Anybody have any interesting anecdotes about their experiences with hauntings, Ouija boards, and ghosts? Even aside from the typical Halloween characters, have you encountered situations that you think were direct interventions from God?
Anyone want to share their paranormal stories?
Confession time: I had dabbled in the occult as a teen, including Ouija boards, horoscopes, Tarot cards and seeking psychic phenomena. I thought I had the second sight.
But, the Lord rescued me. The first step was, I read a book by Harry Houdini called “A Magician Among the Spirits,” debunking so many so-called psychic phenomena of the Spiritualist movement. I also read some CS Lewis books. My older brother became born again at college and invited me to go to his church, where I was saved.
However, I would still sometimes have those kind of dreams, and also ones where I was pulled out of my body and something would not let me go back.
I specifically repented and renounced anything I ever did or had to do wiht the occult and the dreams ended.
Years later we saw the movie “Passion of the Christ” and where Jesus trades glances with Barabbas, while I read something in the subtitles about the murderer, Barabbas, I mentally heard “the socceress, Clover.” I had not thought of the occult in years.
I am still a Houdini fan. I hope somehow someone witnessed to him or that he had a vision of the Lord before he died. I would love to see him in Heaven and say, “Hey, you remember that book ...? The Lord used in a wonderful way.”
“socceress” should be “sorceress.” Or something like that.
I did say/dream some creepy things as a child.
Let’s see, in chronological order:
One night, in middle school, I dreamed that I was reunited with a friend who had moved to the other end of the continent just over a year previously - incidentally, that was the last dream I’ve had since that wasn’t a nightmare. Two nights later, I went to the youth group at my church, and to my surprise I saw this friend that I had dreamed about, because for some reason she had moved back to the area. However, it was about a year after she had left, so maybe the time of year triggered the memory? I had several other similar dreams that came true in the next few months, but I don’t remember them specifically any more, as they were almost entirely about mundane middle-school stuff.
About six months after that, it was 9/11. My family and neighbors were watching their TV (ours was broken) and the second plane had just crashed into the second tower, so we knew it was terrorism. A news anchor said something about not knowing if there were any more hijacked planes, and I said something to the effect of “They’ll go for the Pentagon next.” Well, a few minutes later, there was news footage showing smoke in DC, and an image of a hole in the side of the Pentagon was on the screen. I seriously freaked my neighbor out, but it wasn’t until years later when I saw the time the plane hit the Pentagon that I realised I probably said that at almost the exact time the plane actually crashed... and that was what made me put it into the ‘too weird to explain by coincidence’ category.
And most ironic, years after that I started having recurring nightmares about people dying violently at a certain place. Well, after a couple months of those nightmares, I did actually see someone die violently at that specific place (although in a different manner than in my dreams). The real irony is that I never had those nightmares again, and I never even had nightmares about the incident I witnessed. However, a few weeks later, one of my professors started talking about the possibility of the exact scenario in my nightmares occurring, so I guess that was more of my subconscious trying to tell me something in my dreams than any kind of supernatural foreshadowing. (LOL, can you tell I’m skeptical about this?)
When my dad passed away all us sisters were terribly heart broken. The youngest of us, was especially in mourning. She missed him so badly and she would pray for his soul that Jesus would take care of him every morning and night. She asked Jesus for a sign that Dad was with him before falling to sleep. She woke up suddenly that night and there was a bright light in the middle of her bedroom and there stood dad. He smiled and waved at her and then disappeared. She knew he was with Jesus and she was so happy for him, the pain of losing him went away.
I have another story about a sign given to me and my sisters - an asteroid! We were all together again because mom had cancer - a dangerous kind and was getting an new kind of surgery (at the time it was new) called “whipple.” It seems as adults we all gather at the same time when someone is sick or dying - oh well.
So, we all flew in and gathered at mom and dad's house and then took off to drive to Jacksonville, Fl. to meet mom and dad at the cancer hospital. This time it was the oldest sister totally freaked out and crying and praying for mom. She begged for Jesus to give her a sign that mom was going to be alright as we drove down the highway.
Suddenly my sisters in the back seat gasp! I look out the window and I see this huge streak of light - green and blue and white light traveling over the field by the road. We looked at the paper the next day and it was an asteroid and there was a picture on the front page of the light we saw.
Was it a sign? Mom was in her sixties and lived to almost eighty. I still have the newspaper.
That is an amazing picture. I bet you were surprised!
That’s beautiful.
BTW I’m not endorsing occult activity. I myself have never dabbled in it. I’ve read about it and anecdotes, but I’ve never engaged in anything like it. I know these things are evil, against God’s laws, and are extremely dangerous. Never messed with them, never will.
That must have scared the heck out of you!
I’ve got a few stories:
1. Ex-girlfriend’s friend had a Ouija board and played with it over a span of weeks. The board gave the ex’s friend some creepy answers. Owner of board freaked out and burned the board successfully, but the board screamed while it was being burnt.
2. I have a cousin who summoned the alleged spirit of her father (my uncle) while using a Ouija board. She held a seance in her father’s house- the father died in that house of cancer- I chastised my cousin for doing so because God tells us not to and it could lead to problems down the road.
Even a few years after this man (my uncle) had passed, there were random odors of cigarette smoke (he was a smoker) in the places of the house he most frequented (garage, basement, etc.). There were also sounds of a man coughing, eventhough after my uncle’s death, no men were living in the house.
3. My mother’s appearance and temperature began to change within moments of being blessed at a healing Mass for her spinal injury. Her mother (my grandmother) died only 12 days after the Mass in which my mother asked to have her mind and back healed. My mom took care of my invalid grandmother and had lived with us for a long time.
...more to come...
I have one serious and sad one from this week.
I came home at 9 pm and was joking with my husband. Just talking about the day, upbeat. He turned and said he was going to bed. I asked if he was sick, no. I kept asking why, and he just said, in a strange voice, that he was going to bed. Not angry, just serious. This was highly unusual.
At 1:00 am I got a call from back east, which is bad. It’s 4:00 am there. Our brother-in-law was calling to say that my husband’s only sister, in her 50s, had passed away suddenly.
I won’t go into the sad rest of that story. But note that he had this tunnel-like desire to go to bed far earlier than normal, at the same time his sister passed away. It was uncanny and freaked us out later.
4. I took a trip to NYC a few years ago. Part of my trip itinerary was a stop at the NY Public Library. While I was in the genealogy room to research my ancestors’ arrival to America from Germany and Ireland, I was pushed from behind. I turned around and found no one behind me. People were in my vicinity, but no one was within 20 feet of me.
5. After my live-in grandmother died, we would receive mysterious phone calls during the evening and nobody was on the other end of the line. We tried to Star 69 the phone calls but no number could be found for the dialers of these calls. Perhaps it was my late grandmother, who was notorious for using the phone.
6. Me and my family moved into our current home 15 years ago. One of the first nights I slept here, I dreamt I was sitting in my bedroom and saw blood run down the walls from the ceiling of my room. I woke up in a cold sweat and told my mom about it, she said she had the same dream too. Just a few days later, we were told that two people, Native Americans, were buried underneath a tree adjacent to our house. We live next door to a Baptist Church and these decadents wanted to be buried on the church lot...which my Dad eventually part of that land when he bought the house we currently live in.
Wow, I’m sorry for your loss.
This took place in Michigan, in the area around Wayne, Westland and Inkster. It’s near Detroit.
When I was 15 years old my friend Jim and I had been hanging out in his basement playing some rock LPs backwards. This was the early eighties when the “Back Masking” scare was in full swing. We had already figured out you could hear whatever you want in the noise. Still, some of the sounds freaked us out. This set the mood for what would happen later. We left to meet up with some other friends and played games in a video arcade. After that we wandered around town.
Since we already broke curfew, Jim and I left the crowd, and headed back to our part of town. We went through one of the areas of town the cops usually didn’t patrol. It didn’t work. A cop stopped us and we told him we were on our way home. To our surprise he let us go so we turned towards a more direct route. It was about 2:00 AM.
We were walking south on Meriman Road towards Michigan Avenue. On our left side was a fenced compound called Eloise. A cemetery was on the right. Eloise hosted the Wayne County Sheriff’s office, a place that served Military Veterans (I believe a clinic with hospital beds) and an insane asylum. We walked on the right by the cemetery.
As we approached the start of the cemetery fence an old man walked towards us. He was short and had an average build. He wore a black wool jacket and plain dark trousers. He had gray thinning hair. Before reaching us he turned and entered the open cemetery gate. I wondered why it was open and why this old guy went inside. I figured he worked there as a caretaker.
We walked on, making the usual cemetery jokes about people dieing to get in. Hey, we were kids so deal with it! Up ahead from around the corner came the old man. We slowed, nearly to a stop. The old man approached us looking towards us as if not seeing us. Before reaching us he turned to his left and walked through the gate. I stopped to light a cigarette and we continued forward slowly. Sure enough, he came around the corner again. I felt annoyed and figured he was coming out another gate around the corner and was messing with us. We passed the gate and we were approaching the corner. You guessed it, again. This time he looked at us intently as he approached. He walked past us and I noticed he was moving stiffly. Again he entered the gate. Jim and I picked up our pace, big time!
We rounded the corner and saw he was not there. Relieved I looked along the fence and noted there was no gate visible.
Turning west on Michigan Avenue, we continued on. In that area, Michigan Avenue is a divided highway thick with bars and motels. It was around the time the bar crowds were going to the 24 hour restaurants.
The sidewalk was clear ahead and we relaxed and laughed about what happened. We turned to walk forward and up ahead, sure enough, was the old man. After he passed us and turned the corner I said, “If I see him one more time I am running across the street. I don’t care whether there’s traffic or not.”
“Yeah, you’ll be right behind me,” Jim replied.
You can guess what happened next. We were running neck and neck. While the traffic wasn’t too busy I think we scared the hell out a few drunks.
We never found out who the old guy was. Jim was sure it had something to do with playing the records backwards. He was never able to explain how it could but he was convinced. I still believe he was just some caretaker who wanted to scare a couple of kids. I have no wish to find out…
A few more ad hoc stories:
-I was 18 and I had severe panic attacks. In order to battle my panic attacks, I underwent therapy, took meds, and went on an exercise program. As part of my exercise program, I went on a mile walk 5 nites a week for an extended amount of time. Newly diagnosed with severe panic attacks, I always wondered aloud “Why do you have to give me this God? Why must you harm me? Do you exist? Do you care?” I always asked God for a sign for His existence and His care for me.
So for a span of weeks when I took these almost nightly walks, I found crosses and crucifixes wherever I went. Where did I find these? I walked around my suburban neighborhood and I gazed at the houses and saw crucifixes and crosses hanging in so many rooms that had the blinds open those nights. One night I was walking and stumbled on some sticks out in the middle of a sidewalk. I looked back and saw that these sticks from trees were shaped...perfectly...in the sign of a cross.
-My grandmother, despite her Catholicism, went to fortune tellers and psychics. She went to 1 psychic who was precise and accurate. The psychic said one of her sons will get into a car accident soon (3 months later it happened), another soon will lose his finger (which happened a few days later) and her husband (my grandfather) will die of lung troubles (he was a smoker and died of emphysema about 10 years later).
One time my husband and I were out partying in Cambridge for our anniversary. We had a great dinner and went to some clubs and danced. We were tipsy and happy walking back to the hotel. We passed a psychic and my husband said he had never visited one but he wanted to go in. I said i would if it was me who got the reading and I did that becasue I knew not to give her any clues to help her along.
To make a long story short she assumed I was about 15 years younger than I was - a student at one of the universities and she thought my husband was not my boyfriend - too old for me! I let her go on and she gave me a reading in the context of being a college kid. It was a riot. Ha!
He told me that after the cops brought him to the psych ward he was strapped down and in torment and someone asked him if they could pray for him. He told them to please do and he said he felt much better afterward and that the person who prayed for him told him there were angels around. He asked them who they were and the person told him that he couldn't tell him.
I was discipled by a guy who had his own deliverance ministry for 20 years. He and his wife had some hair raising tales. There is a Christian documentary coming out on valentines day called Furious Love that opens with a deliverance in Africa. The directer Darren Wilson said that when they were in the deliverance tent the demons knew who they were and why they were there and they were not happy about it and the cameraman was attacked.
Crazy stuff.
Week before 9/11 I had a very vivid dream of a southern manhatten building collapsing, and a single hand was sticking out of the wreckage.
I told a friend and forgot about it. She reminded me of it afterwards. Crazy stuff, but really did happen.
For your Ghost Ping list.
Out of curiosity, what area of the country did you live in? It sounds like the kind of geothermal activity that would cause geysers or something similar if there had been water around, and the temperature sounds about right.
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