Ouija Board

The Spirit’s Stone

~ Tara Theresa Hill ~ 2 Comments

Thanks to Diane from St. Augustine, Florida for this story!

One day, Diane was visiting a friend, when she was presented with a strange stone pendant.  It was a beautiful malachite stone in a homemade setting.  Knowing that Diane was into crystals, incense, and things like that, the woman offered to give Diane the stone.  Her friend said that she had found it years ago, but didn’t like wearing it because she seemed to have a bad day whenever she did.  Before deciding to take it, Diane wanted to get a feel for the stone’s energy.  Holding it in her hands, she closed her eyes and sensed green sweeping hills that reminded her of Ireland.  Diane decided that she liked the stone and thanked her friend for giving it to her.

Soon after, Diane wore the stone to a Druid meet up and a Wiccan meeting.  At both events, different people approached her and said that they were picking up weird vibes from the stone.  They encouraged Diane to cleanse the stone before wearing it again.  Diane took the stone home, gave it a sage cleansing, and placed it on the altar she had dedicated to the fairies.

Instead of helping, odd things started happening in her apartment.  Stuff was moved around, lights turned themselves on and off, and she began seeing a white ball of light that floated about the apartment and over her fairy altar.  Then she saw an apparition of a young girl with long, straight, dark hair peeking around the corner of the hallway by her bedroom.  The child spirit looked to be about eight or nine years old.  Diane’s husband also caught a glimpse of the spirit.  One night, he went to take out the trash and saw a person sitting in the back of Diane’s car.  When he looked closer and saw the little girl’s ghost, he freaked out and went and told his wife.

Another day, Diane had just finished vacuuming the living room.  She turned the vacuum off and went to go talk to her husband about something.  A few minutes later, she went back into the living room to find that the whole thing had been turned upside down and dumped out all over the floor.  Both Diane and her husband had just been in the next room and they hadn’t heard a sound.

It was clear that something was wrong.  With all this activity happening since Diane had brought the necklace home, she placed it in salt water to try to purify it again. While Diane’s husband was afraid, Diane just wanted to know what was going on.  She decided to try to contact the spirit through meditation.

She cast a circle and used a homemade Ouija board with a pendulum.  The spirit told her that her name was E.J. and that she had been killed in an invasion during wartime in St. Augustine.  The stone pendant had been a gift to her and she wanted it back.  One of Diane’s friends, who was a Wiccan high priestess, came to inspect the house and confirmed what Diane had found out through the Ouija board session.  The piece of malachite emanated a guardian energy that was intended to help protect the child’s spirit.

Meanwhile, Diane had this nagging suspicion that whatever spirit was attached to the stone was not happy that it was submerged in salt water.  Unable to dismiss this feeling, Diane took the malachite pendant out of the water and placed it back on her fairy altar.  She warned her husband not to touch it and then went out to do some errands.

When she got home, she went back in her room to find the stone missing.  Diane asked her husband where the stone was, but he swore that he hadn’t seen it.  They searched the room, but couldn’t find it anywhere.  Later, as they were getting into bed, her husband said that he felt something underneath his pillow.  Picking up his pillow, he found the green stone lying underneath.  Diane’s husband turned pale and leapt out of the bed screaming, “How did it get there?!”  After that, Diane promised E.J. that she would find a way to return the stone to her.

The next day, she put the stone into a cloth bag covered with rune symbols and went to go see her friend.  Diane asked the woman where she had gotten the stone.  At this point, the woman confessed that she had found the malachite pendant while hanging out in a cemetery after dark when she was a teenager.  Diane was upset.  She would never have accepted the stone if she had known where it had come from.  She asked the woman for the location of the graveyard so that she could return it.

The burial ground was across from a fort.  Many of the people buried in there died from a yellow fever outbreak.  By the time that Diane got there, the cemetery gates were locked.  She really didn’t want to keep the stone any longer than necessary.  Walking around the perimeter, she saw a little grave with the initials E.J.

“That must be her grave!” thought Diane.  Now, the problem was getting inside to return the malachite pendant.  She didn’t want to take it home again since she was only feet away from the little ghost girl’s grave.  She stood there holding the stone and praying over it for a few minutes.  Taking her best shot, she hurled the stone over the gate.  It landed in an aloe plant that was right next to the tiny grave.

On her way home from the cemetery, Diane found a fairy pendant lying on the ground.  She took this as a sign that E.J. was happy and at peace now that she had her stone back.  When she got home, the apartment’s energy was back to normal.  The spirit had moved on.

After these events, Diane learned that there is a spirit named Elizabeth who haunts the city gates, which are located right across from the cemetery.  According to local history, Elizabeth was the daughter of one of the guards.  She is believed to have died during an invasion.  Could the spirit of Elizabeth and E.J. be one and the same?  What do you think?  Let me know in the comments.

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Dorming with Ghosts: The Many Spirits of Marillac Hall

~ Tara Theresa Hill ~ 3 Comments

Ouija boards are the subject of much controversy.  Having grown up with a psychic mother, I am pretty comfortable using them, although I know that it is wise to take some precautions, such as lighting a white candle and placing a chalice or bowl of water nearby to help attract positive spirits.  I had some spectacular experiences with ghosts during my years at the College of Mount Saint Vincent, especially at Marillac Hall.

I lived in Marillac Hall in my Junior year.  I’m glad that I had a roommate because I don’t think that I would have been brave enough to live there on my own.  The oldest building on campus, Marillac was built in the late 1800s.  My college always had a lot of fun hosting haunted houses and ghost tours for Halloween.  After getting permission from the Residence Director, I invited my mother and a friend up to do a Ouija board séance at Marillac Hall.

I was standing downstairs in the lounge, waiting for my mother to arrive.  Suddenly, I heard a tapping sound.  Looking up, I saw a face grinning back at me through the porch door’s window.  I must have jumped ten feet high.  The woman on the other side of the doorway laughed hysterically.

“Very funny, Mom,” I chided her.  “You have to come in the front door.  The porch is always kept locked.”  She nodded and I went around to get her and our family friend, Artie, signed in under me.  Artie, also known as Lord Tammuz, is another elder of the Craft in New York City.  He and my mom have been friends for many years and they are used to doing the Ouija board together.  Mom, Artie, and I spent some time catching up while we waited for people to arrive for the event.

Once everyone was there, I introduced Mom and Artie to the group.  Mom explained how we were going to respectfully ask any spirits who were around if they wished to communicate.  This was not going to be an aggressive event where we tried to coerce spirits into making contact.  While there were never any guarantees that spirits would decide to come thorough the board, Mom was hopeful that there would be a high level of activity that night because it was Halloween.  The veil between the Spirit World and the living is thinnest on Halloween night, which is also known as Samhain in Wiccan traditions.

Due to fire safety precautions, we could not light any candles, but Mom said that was okay.  She didn’t think we would run into any negative spirits.  The Mount is a peaceful, holy place.  CMSV was founded by the Sisters of Charity and Marillac Hall has a tiny chapel located on the first floor where the Sisters sometimes hold special, private prayer sessions.

We turned down the lights, keeping only the low lamps on so that we could see the board clearly.  Mom and Artie did the board while I recorded the words that the spirits spelled out.  The first spirit that came through was a gentleman from the 1940s.  His wife had attended the College of Mount Saint Vincent back when it was still a women’s college.  He had fond memories of visiting her here while they were courting.  They had gotten married after she graduated.

The room that we were doing the Ouija board reading in is known as the “Engagement Room.”  Mom and Artie didn’t know this, but my classmates and I did because we knew the history of the building.  When the school was still exclusively for women, male visitors weren’t allowed to go upstairs to visit their girlfriends.  The front desk attendant would escort the gentleman caller into the “Engagement Room” to wait.  Then they would let the young lady know that she had a visitor.

The second spirit that came through was a priest with a heavy Irish brogue named Father William.  During his life, he had resided on campus and taught mathematics.  This was reflected in the friendly, but professorial manner in which he addressed us.  He told us that many spirits chose to “haunt” CMSV, but not in the negative sense.  Very few, if any were stuck there.  Rather, the positive experiences that they had at the Mount forged a bond with the place that kept them coming back to visit long after they had gone to the light.

Father William went on to explain that sometimes spirits returning for a visit would be surprised by the changes that the Mount had undergone in their absence.  His former abode was now a large broom closet.  One of my classmates gasped, “Are you the ghost that haunts the storage closet on the third floor whose door always opens up on its own?”

“Aye,” Father William spelled out.

“Why do you stay there?” we asked.

“The landlord hates me,” he responded.  Then Father William told us all to study hard and said that he had to be going because there were other spirits who wanted to come through the board.

A couple of other spirits came through.  One commented on a student’s velvet curtains and said that she could leave them open if she ever wanted to see the ghosts that congregate on the balcony outside her window at night.  Just like the porch, the balcony had been sealed off many years before and students were forbidden to climb out onto it, even if their windows overlooked it.  The young woman shook her head, “After this, I’m always keeping them closed.”

Then the last spirit of the night arrived.  This one was a female from the 1950s.  “Hi, gang!” she chirped out over the board.  She introduced herself as K.M.  “I love Marillac!  I have a monument here.”  We all looked at each other.  As far as my classmates and I knew, there was no monument to any student on campus.  We were curious about how she had died.

K.M. grew sad.  “I did something foolish that led to an accident.”

“What did you do?” we asked.

She spelled out one word.  “Dumbwaiter.”  She had apparently climbed inside of one and the resulting accident had led to her death.

I nodded.  “Oh…That must be why all of the old dumbwaiters in the building are sealed up now.”

The spirit circled “YES” on the board.

We were all silent for a moment.  Then one of the students asked, “Where is your monument?”

K.M. responded, “In here.  Turn on the light.”

We didn’t understand what she meant, so we kept turning on and off lights for a few minutes.  We didn’t see any monument though.  It was close to midnight at this point, so we had to bring the event to a close.  We all said goodbye to K.M.  Then Mom thanked the spirits for joining us and closed out the session.  As we were cleaning up, Mom noticed something behind a tall lamp.  The lampshade had been hiding a brass plaque that was attached to the wall.  The initials of the person who the plaque commemorated were K.M. from the Class of 1955.

You can read more about the hauntings of CMSV in the following Ghost Posts: A Strange Welcome: Marillac Hall, Part 1, I Thought I was Alone: Marillac Hall, Part 2, The Ghost of Marillac Hill, Legends of CMSV: Sarah’s Story, and The Ghost Chase.

If you have a real ghost story that you would like to share with The Ghost Post, send me an email to theghostpostreporter@gmail.com to set up an interview.  I’m always in the mood for a good ghost story! 

For more ghost stories, paranormal phenomena, and updates, follow Tara Theresa Hill on Facebook and on Twitter at @TaraTheresaHill.

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The Haunting of The Royalton Hotel

~ Tara Theresa Hill ~ 4 Comments

Lady Rhea was contacted in 1991 to do a séance for the Royalton Hotel in New York City. They had had complaints about an aggressive spirit haunting the hotel and the staff were curious if she could make contact with the spirit. Rhea agreed to look into the matter and enlisted her two close friends, Tony and Raven, to help her.

On the assigned date, Rhea, Raven, and Tony arrived at the Royalton Hotel to conduct the séance. They were led to a small hotel room on the second floor. Rhea and Raven worked the Ouija Board, while Tony recorded the responses. Nine staff members joined them for the séance making a total of twelve people in the room.

At first, they had sporadic contact with several energies. The spirit of a little boy came through the board asking if anyone had seen his mother. After the young boy left, heavy footsteps could be heard walking outside the door in the hallway. Then they felt the presence of a male spirit enter the room. Rhea got the impression that he was a finely dressed, tall man with dark hair. He had a gruff voice and a tough guy attitude.

“What is your name?” asked Rhea.

“William Rose,” he spelt out on the board.

One of the hotel staff jumped up, “As in Billy Rose?”

The pointer circled the word “YES” rapidly. “Ooh, he’s cranky,” said Raven. “Do you know him?” asked Rhea. The staff member swallowed. “We know of him. He used to live here back in the days when the place was a residential hotel.”

Rhea turned back to the board. “Are you the ghost haunting this floor?” The spirit moved the pointer to “YES” again. Now that the spirit had fully established his presence, he started calling out staff members in the room and asking them questions.

“Where’s Red?” he asked. Red was the nickname for a manager who was supposed to be on call that night, but had called out of work. “Why do you want to know?” asked Rhea. William responded back smartly, “I wanted to talk to him.” The room fell silent.

Next, William indicated a female worker that was in the room and said, “I’ve seen you taking a nap in room 307.” The woman’s eyes went wide. “Well, I’ll never lay down in there again,” she said.

“Okay. I have some questions for you now. Would you be willing to answer them for me?” asked Rhea. William said that he would. “Why do you push people in the hall?” asked Rhea. William smirked, “Cause they’re stepping on my newspaper. Next question.”

“Why aren’t you moving on to the light? Are you stuck? Do you need help?”

William answered solemnly, “I’m waiting for Edie.”

It was around one in the morning by this point, so Rhea wrapped up the séance. On the way home, Rhea, Raven, and Tony were questioning what had happened that night. Raven was driving, Rhea was up front in the passenger seat, and Tony was in the back. They were driving by the side of a cliff on Wendover Road when all three were overwhelmed by the scent of roses and the car went into a 360-degree spin.

“Stop it, Raven!” screamed Rhea, thinking Raven had spun the wheel too hard on the turn.

“It’s not me,” shouted Raven.

Just as quickly as it started, the car stopped. The scent of roses disappeared. There were no roses growing along the highway. It was a clear night. The roads were clean, there wasn’t any ice or rain, and they hadn’t driven over an oil spill. Rhea felt that William Rose had spun the car and made it smell like roses to show them that he was real. A few months later, Rhea mentioned the incident to one of her clients. The customer said that she knew the Edie who William Rose was referring to. Edie was elderly and had recently moved into a nursing home. William was waiting for her to pass on, so that they could move on into the light together.

Picture for Royalton Hotel Article - Public Domain Archive
Public Domain Archive

If you have a real ghost story that you would like to share with The Ghost Post, send me an email to theghostpostreporter@gmail.com to set up an interview.

I’m always in the mood for a good ghost story! 

For more ghost stories, paranormal phenomena, and updates, follow Tara Theresa Hill on Facebook and on Twitter at @TaraTheresaHill.

 

 

 

A Haunting in Yonkers

~ Tara Theresa Hill ~ 1 Comment

One of the most haunted places that I have ever been in was the apartment building where I grew up in Yonkers, NY.  During the six or seven years that we rented there, my parents and I lived in two different apartments.  One was located on the fifth floor and the other was on the second floor.  All of the paranormal activity took place in the second, larger three-bedroom apartment.

Things started off weird almost from the second we moved in.  I remember my mother cleansing the place with Florida water, smudging the doorways, and mopping the floors. Something about that place wasn’t right.  It felt different from our former apartment.  I think I was about seven years old when we moved in and I instantly felt strange there.  My parents’ bathroom terrified me.  I was always afraid that someone was going to come out of the shower stall and try to grab me.  I didn’t feel that way about the other bathroom that was located toward the front of the apartment though.  I took all of my baths and showers in the front bathroom and insisted on keeping the back bathroom door closed whenever I was in my parents’ bedroom.

Then there were the strange echoes that spoke our names.  This happened to everyone in the house.  We would suddenly hear someone calling our names.  I would hear mom or dad calling me from some other area of the apartment, but when I went to them, they’d say that they never said my name.  This happened to my parents, too.  They would hear either me or think that the other person was calling for them.  This got very frustrating and was particularly eerie whenever it happened because you didn’t know if you were really being called or not.

Other times, I would be playing in my room, deeply immersed in a game when I would suddenly feel someone watching me.  Usually, I would get scared and run and find my parents.  This got a bit better after we got my dog, Bambi.  He was extra-protective of me and I believe that he guarded the house in a spiritual capacity.

One summer day, I had a friend over and we decided to play with my mother’s Ouija board.  I had told my friend that I thought our house was haunted and wanted to see if I could contact the ghost.  I lit a white candle and brought a bowl of water just as I had seen my mother do many times before in her stores and me and my friend sat down to do our first Ouija board reading.  Mom saw what we were doing and must have got a kick out of it because she didn’t stop us.  We had a few false starts where either my friend or I were pushing the planchette, but soon it was flying over the board, spelling out messages.

“Hello.  Is anyone there?” my friend and I asked the board.

The spirit responded back with, “Yes.  Hello.”

My friend and I looked at each other.  I swallowed.  “Are you the ghost who is haunting this house?”

The spirit responded back, “Yes.”  We started giggling a bit out of nervousness, but I warned my friend that Mom told me that we always had to be respectful of spirits.  “Have you been in my room watching me play?” I asked.

“I have been in all the rooms,” said the spirit.  “I used to live here.”

At this point, my mother came over and started taking down the notes for us because they were coming so fast.  The spirit identified herself as a woman who used to live in a mansion that had been on the site where our apartment building now stood.  Having read enough ghost stories to know about unfinished business and trapped spirits, I asked, “Why are you still here?  How did you die?”

The spirit spelled out, “I hung myself.”

“Okay…Time to say goodbye now, kids,” piped my mother.  She jumped on the board with me and said, “We’re very sorry to hear that.  We wish you peace.  I’ll light a white candle for you to help you cross over to the other side.”  The planchette spelled out “Yes, thank you, and goodbye,” and my mother closed up the board.  When I asked her about it later, she said that the board was just probably messing with us and not to read too much into it.  I asked if we could move, but my mother said no.  We had to learn to live with the ghost and vice versa.  I decided not to play with the Ouija board anymore after that.

That winter we had a series of terrible snowstorms.  My father went out to help people shovel and dig out their cars.  One of the people was an elderly woman who happened to be a local historian.  She invited us in for coffee and hot cocoa and asked us where we lived.  When we told her, she started telling us about why there were huge slabs of slate in the wooded area that surrounded our apartment.  Back in Victorian times there had been mansions in this area where people like the Rockefellers hosted and attended great balls.  A lot of the mansions had been knocked down, the grounds bought up, and real estate moguls had built new housing on top of them.  She winked as us, “But I still like to think that you can feel the spirit of those people in the air around here, don’t you?”

I stared at my mother.  She turned to the lady.  “You have no idea,” she said.