Jessica Penot's Blog, page 3

A Lonely Ghost

The best ghost stories are often the ones that very few people know.  They are the private ones that people tell you at parties and in confidence.  They are not the stories told by those who are seeking publicity or notoriety.  They are told by those who are genuinely scared by an even they don't want everyone to know.

I spoke with a woman today whose name I won't mention.  She told me about a home she had in Pell City, Alabama.   She knew there was something slightly off the house to begin with.  The realtor told her that someone had died in the house.  She didn't have any details, but she knew the house had a history.  Almost as soon as she moved in the house, she noticed small electronic glitches throughout the home.   Her garage door opened and closed on its own in the middle of the night.  Lights flickered.  The light in her china cabinet went on and off constantly.

Despite this, she didn't feel anything malevolent in the events so she just ignored the oddities until her daughter described seeing the ghost running through the house.  The daughter described the spirit as a woman.  At this point, the woman told the ghost to go away and she was given a reprieve from disturbances for a while.  But when the ghost came back, it came back in full force.  The next time the ghost came, she saw it.  She saw the reflection of a pale and sad woman in her mirror.  She told the ghost to go away again and it left.

She moved.  The ghost didn't drive her out.   Life just moved her to a new location.   But despite the relocation,  the lights in the china cabinet have never been right and she still feels the ghost presence.  It doesn't scare her.  She just describes the ghost as feeling lost and lonely.  Periodically, electrical problems will get worse and one time the china cabinet cracked spontaneously.  She believes this happened when the ghost was mad. She asked me if I thought the ghost could have followed her,  I said yes.  She agreed.  She thought the ghost felt less lonely with her.  Hauntings come and go but some ghosts follow people more than places.  Some ghosts are just lonely. 

Book Corner: The Bothell Hell House: Poltergeist of Washington State.

True Haunted House story - 2012.   Keith Linder after successfully obtaining a management position at a prestigious healthcare company decides the time is right for him and his girlfriend to move in together. Weird things begin to happen within days of moving into the Seattle suburban home.   This griping story, told from the house occupant point of view not only lists tales, but also includes pictures, video reenactments, commentary, and audio of the events being reported.   "It was the beginning of the end when living in that house...".   Thats what the previous tenant told Keith, after he caught up with her.    It was a living hell for them and a living hell for Keith and Tina.  Keith Linder does not ask that you believe him. He only asks that you listen. 

THe Bothell Hell House: Poltergeist of Washington State.

True Haunted House story - 2012.   Keith Linder after successfully obtaining a management position at a prestigious healthcare company decides the time is right for him and his girlfriend to move in together. Weird things begin to happen within days of moving into the Seattle suburban home.   This griping story, told from the house occupant point of view not only lists tales, but also includes pictures, video reenactments, commentary, and audio of the events being reported.   "It was the beginning of the end when living in that house...".   Thats what the previous tenant told Keith, after he caught up with her.    It was a living hell for them and a living hell for Keith and Tina.  Keith Linder does not ask that you believe him. He only asks that you listen. 

The Devil's Bible

The Codex Gigas is the world's largest illuminated manuscript.  The book contains a Latin translation of the bible, medical texts, a history of Bohemia, and several other works.  It appears to be an attempt to place all the knowledge in the world at the time in a single book.  It is a historical and literary feat that was unprecedented at its time.   The book is three feet tall and weighs a hundred and sixty five pounds.  Most historians estimate that if a solitary monk worked for five years and never stopped to eat or drink, he could write only the written words in the Codex Gigas.   That doesn't include the illustrations or the amazing illustrations. 

The book's story is more than just history, however,  According to legend,  the book was written by a monk who broke his vows.  As a sentence for this unspeakable transgression, he was walled up allive within his monastery in the modern day Czech Republic.   The monk was desperate and pleaded for help.  He offered to write a book containing all the world's knowledge if he could be freed from his prison. In his desperation, the monk plead with the devil to help him.  The devil answered and gave the monk The Devil's Bible, otherwise know as the Codex Gigas.  The large painting of the devil on 269 is said to be an homage to the devil. 

How to Get Rid of a Haunting

 My parents don't talk much about ghosts.  They will talk about their paranormal experiences if you ask them, but they like to keep their experiences hidden in the shadows.  My father didn't believe in ghosts when he met my mother.   He thought of himself as a man of logic.   He still does.  He is an engineer and he believes in what he can touch and see, but even he can't explain many of the things that have happened at their current home.  In fact, it got so bad that at some point they brought the priest in for a cleansing ritual.  The priest blessed all the rooms in the house and put stickers on the door frames to act as barriers to prevent bad spirits from entering the rooms.  My old room was one of the most haunted rooms and the sticker from the priest's blessing still remains in the door frame today.   Having a priest come and bless your home or a pastor is one of the oldest Christian cleansing rituals and is common in Western culture.  The image of a priest exorcising the demons a house has also come to be one of the most iconic images in paranormal popular culture.  Most parish priests will bless the homes of their parishioners and my parents only had to submit a small request for this to be done.   My parents report that it helped reduced the activity in their home, although it did not stop it altogether.

Another fairly popular mechanism for cleansing bad spirits and negative energy from your home
comes from Native American tradition and consists of a ritual smudging.  The use of dried white sage is a 2000 year old tradition.   Shamans used dried sage in their fires to call on ancestral spirits to take negative energy from a home or a person.   Smudging kits today are fairly popular and can be bought at any new age store or on amazon.com.  I can't testify to how helpful these rituals are in the face of an actual haunting, but I have heard others say that they can be helpful. 

Salt is also a common ingredient in cleansing rituals.  The use of salt to ward off evil spirits has been popular in many cultures and dates back to the old testament.   Salt is said to protect any home or person from any bad spirit or entity.   It should be sprinkled liberally on door frames and windows and throughout the house to drive away negative spirits. 

My sister uses techniques she learned in Reiki and doing energy work to cleanse cursed objects and objects with negative spiritual energy attached to them.  As a licensed therapist, I have had several clients come to me who believe they are being tormented by ghosts and poltergeists.  After screening for more serious mental illness and ruling it out, I have helped them drive their negative spirits away using a principle that unites almost all of these techniques.   All spirits require energy to grow strong and if you take that energy from them, they will fade and dissipate.  Replace the negativity in you and your life with positive energy and let go of your fear.   Spirits feed on fear.   The most effective cleansing exercise I have ever done is to simply stand with someone in strength without fear and have them tell the spirit to go away.  All cleansing exercises share one thing, they take the fear away, thus diminishing the manifestation.   When faced with any spirit, the first step is to find your strength and diminish your fear.  A guide who is experienced in this can help.  If you can not find one,  you can always email me for help. 

The Moody Brick and the Tragic Story of Joseph Sanders

One of my favorite chapters in my book Haunted North Alabama is the chapter about The Moody Brick.  In fact,  The Moody Brick is one of my favorite ghost stories.   When I did a presentation on ghost stories at the library,  a lovely lady named Ms. Dorothea came to see the presentation just to discuss the Moody Brick with me.   She had read my book and wanted to share her family history with me.   Although she was no ghost story junky, she collected stories about the Moody Brick because her family was linked to the old house.   This week, she sent me an amazing collection of photographs and information about and of The Moody Brick.  I am honored to share this information.

For those of you who haven't read Haunted North Alabama, The Moody Brick is an old plantation house in rural Alabama.  Its bricks positively drip with ghost stories and old legends.  The ghost stories there are so thick you'd have to shovel them away to see past them.   The stories start with tortured slaves who rise up to kill their masters and enter into the civil war when the house was used as a hospital and keep on going through suicide and tragedies.   Ms. Dorothea added another sorrowful tale to the Moody Brick's history.

The paperwork she sent me told of her 3rd Grandfather, Joseph Sanders.   She sent me information that came from a grave website and was submitted by Gary Sanders.  When describing the family relations to the Moody Brick  he told this story:
     "Joseph Sanders had some rebel neighbors.   The rebel neighbors hung him on a mulberry tree because they thought he was giving information to the Yankees.  There were three of the rebels, one a neighbor by the name of Barbee-after killing him they left with a horse thy were using as a pack mule to carry the things that they had taken.  That evening, not long after the rebels had left, a group of Yankees came down out of the mountain and went after the rebels.   They caught up with them near the foot of the mountain close to the old Moody Brick.  The Yankees killed te horse and made the men dig a grave for it.  When the grave was dug- they killed the men- put them in the hole and rolled the horse on top of them. "

 There seem to be many variations on this story.  In some variations, Sanders is shot and killed by bushwhackers rather than rebels.  Either way, the murderers were killed and buried under the mulberry tree at The Moody Brick, adding to the many ghosts that wander the grounds.

Ms. Dorothea also sent me information on The Harris/Moody Brick Family Cemetery located on the grounds of The Moody Brick.  According to this information there are seven marked graves on the cite and six graves with markers but no inscriptions.  There may be as many as 50 graves on the property outside the fenced in family cemetery area.  There was a clean up of the area in 2005 and they attempted to mark as many of these graves as possible with concrete blocks. 

Other information she sent me included a tour guide for the Moody Brick and farm with its history on it.  The tour guide describes the restoration of this beautiful old home and its significance in the history of the region.  It also described the architectural evolution of the house.  At the bottom of the brochure it states: "We appreciate your interest in this historic home.  Unfortunately for some, it is not a paranormal site- no ghosts here."  It is clear the current owners want to respect the history of their amazing house and dispel the folklore and fascination associated with it.  I respect that and include this information in this post so people know not to travel to the house expecting to ghost hunt there.  Although I love the many ghost stories surrounding the house, I appreciate that the current owners want no part in them and ask people to come and visit to enjoy the rich and interesting history, not the ghosts.

   The pictures Ms. Dorothea sent me are included in this post. I can not thank Ms. Dorothea enough for all the information she sent me and for coming to talk with me about hr family history and the history of the Moody Brick.  I wish I could write another book and include the wealth of information she has sent me.  It was an honor to meet someone who is a part of the history I love and for them to holds me in enough regard to send me information on their family.     

Can Divining Rods be Used to Communicate with the Spirit World?

In November, I went on the Mobile Ghost Tour.  This tour of downtown Mobile took us through many of Mobile's most haunted locations.   It also gave us a brief introduction to ghost hunting with divining rods

Historically, divining rods were a forked or y shaped branch that would be used by "water" or "willow" witches to do something called dousing.  Dousing is a type of divination that was used to find water or wells.  Dousing was also used to find all sorts of buried gems, minerals and treasures.  Divining rods have been used in this context for thousands of years and they are nothing new.  Many mystics and spiritualists have taken this method of divination quite seriously and multiple books and theories have been published on this topic.    A french priest and douser, Alex Bouly, renamed dousing  radieshtesia in 1927 and thus added an air of respectability to the practice.

However,  using copper divining rods to communicate with the dead is a relatively new practice. The practice is easy.  During our ghost hunt, we stood very still in a vacant lot where a homeless man had been murdered.   It was also the site of a famous lynching and an old cemetery.  We also went to the famously haunted Richard's house and the old Masonic Temple. There were many ghosts for us to talk too.  We held the rods up and asked questions to the spirits.  We held one rod in each hand directly in front of us.  Theoretically,  the rods were supposed to respond to our questions.  Their movement should be driven by spiritual activity.   We held a rod in each hand and if they crossed that was a no and if they seperated that was a yes.  They could also point in response to our questions. 

I did a lot of experimentation with these rods and what I found was that unless you can keep your hands as still as granite, much of the movement and fluctionat in the rods was due more to very minor shifts and movements in my arms and hands.   After a few hours, I determined that the divining rods responded too easily to very minor movement to be reliable.  I did manage to convince the tour guide I was a lightning rod for the spirit world by moving my pinky slightly to the right which created a swirling motion in the rod that was quiet impressive.  Even when I was attempting to be perfectly still, any minor tremor resulted in massive movements in the rods. 

Behavioral observation lead me to believe that the rods were responding similarly to my fellow ghost hunters.  I observed minor fluctuations in their hands and slight movements that I don't even think they were aware of. 

In conclusion,  using the diving rods for ghost hunting was fun.  Everyone on the tour enjoyed it, but I don't think they were any real link to the unknown.  I think they were more a link to how still we could keep our hands and arms.  These rods are very easy to come by and can be purchased on amazon.com if you would like to experiment with them yourself.  Below are some of the pictures of the locations we ghost hunted at. 

Cleansing a Cursed Mask

Cursed objections seem abundant today.  All you have to do is search for cursed objects on Ebay to see a million everyday objects that contain ghosts or demons or killed someone.  I believe most of these objects are just things people found around the house and decided to try to sell and make money off of.  I collect historic objects and have bid on Viking antiquities at various auctions.  None of them have contained any curses or malignant spirits.  I even bought a haunted doll on Ebay once out of curiosity.  It is cute, but harmless.  I believe truly haunted or cursed items are rare.

My sister has recently gotten into energy work.  She believes in realigning chakras and helping cleanse people of negative energy.  My sister is also a medium.  One of her clients gave her a mask because the mask "wanted" her and the mask had negative energy.  The client believed the mask was drawn to Rose and had been scared  by haunted activity that had occured around the mask.  I am very honest with my sister.  She knows I am skeptical of her work.  I have a degree in clinical psychology and have practiced for ten years.  I tend to believe in cognitive behavioral theory rather than in misaligned chakras or bad energy.  However, this mask my sister got definitely possessed something.  From the moment it entered her life, it spoke to her.  She had to get rid of it.  Others around her saw spirits associated with the mask.  The previous owner was terrified of it.  After working with the mask, she was able to cleanse it and the ghost she believes she has been able to free the spirit that was in the mask and return it to its original owner.   Although I remain skeptical of my sister's work,  I find it beautiful that she was able to cleanse a cursed object and return it's owner.

The Ghosts of the Fort Conde Inn

The Fort Conde Inn in Mobile Alabama is one of the most beautiful bed and breakfasts I have stayed in.  It is fair to say I haven't stayed in many b&b's but that doesn't mean that this rare Inn isn't lovely.  This old, plantation style house whispers of old Southern ghost stories before you even know there are ghost stories there.  The house is in a lonely corner of the busy downtown of Mobile and theentire street it is on feels strangely out of time.  Just to the right of tall, modern sky scrapers and a garishly modern convention center there is a small park dedicated to the history of Mardi Gras.   American Mardi Gras as we know it was founded in Mobile and transported to New Orleans. The little park serves as a reminder of that.  Past the park, there are interstates and busy roads but in between the park and the roads there is a quiet place with an old church and old buildings that seem to be almost forgotten. The old court house and Fort Le Conde stand watch to the one road that leads to this quiet place where history seems to own the roads.

This quiet place is owned almost entirely by the same developer.  He bought this area for The Fort Conde Inn and although the main building is the one most associated with the hotel, the entire neighborhood is part of the Inn and is owned by the same developer.  This area was once the red light district in Mobile.  If you came off a boat and you wanted a bit of fun, the building to the left of the main Inn was once a brothel and the other buildings were bars and houses of ill repute.  Built in 1836, the main hotel was once owned by a wealthy plantation owner, but once this little corner of Mobile went down hill, it was abandoned to decay.

Eventually, even the prostitutes and drug dealers abandoned the corner of Mobile and just let it fall to ruin.  But thankfully, it was purchased and re purposed and is now an Inn with cabins and a venue for weddings.  The cobblestone streets and gas streetlights give the entire area a feeling of other worldliness.   Ghost stories abound on these cobblestone streets and everyone tells them a bit differently.  The internet speaks of clawing and disembodied voices, but those that work there say that they can't imagine any bad spirits in the Fort Conde Inn.  One employee spoke of an old civil war soldier who liked to sit on the front porch of one of the old houses and watch the Inn. She spoke of the ghost of a prostitute who could be seen through one of the windows.  The ghost tour guide didn't say much about specific ghosts but said that bad things must have happened in the old red light district.  She said ghost stories where prolific, but was oddly reluctant to tell them, perhaps because I was staying there.

I didn't see any ghosts while I was there.  I enjoyed a brilliant breakfast and pet the cats that wandered in and out of the courtyard.  I sat on the porch at night and listened to the eerie silence in such a busy downtown area, but I didn't see anything creepy.   I hope the ghost stories are true, however, because The Fort Conde Inn feels so haunting it should be haunted.

The Mysteries that lurk in the Shadows of the House of the Sun King: A True Story

There is an abandoned house at the end of a street in my neighborhood.  For years, it has been a popular spot for urban explorers and kids looking for a bit of adventure. We first noticed the house five years ago when a legion of fire trucks rushed to the woods behind our neighborhood.  We had no idea there was a house in the woods until we saw that someone had attempted to burn it down.  The fire was put out, but once we knew it was there, our curiosity about the house became endless.

The  house is creepy and strange.  The upstairs is laid out like a a daycare and filled with forgotten toys and the downstairs features a massive mural of the sun labeled "The Sun King" in French.  I have written about the house before as it feels haunted and I always believed it was haunted.  It is one of those places that looks haunted from far away and when you step in it the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

A few weeks ago, they began clearing the lot the house stood on.  The house used to be hidden in a small forest, but all the trees have been knocked down and the house is even more damaged than it had been to begin with.  With the trees down, we could see there was a barn behind the house and there was more to the house than we initially thought, so we decided to go exploring again.  We also felt more free to explore as the gate had been taken down and all the no trespassing signs had been removed.  It seemed open for anyone and there was nothing to indicate we shouldn't explore.  From here, I began to feel like I had walked into a horror movie or murder mystery.  Even as I told my husband about what happened, he laughed and asked me if I was sure I wasn't talking about the movie "Sinister".

We walked into the house and found mountains of boxes everywhere.  The roof had partially collapsed and boxes from the attic had fallen into the garage.  In the boxes, were the remains of a family's most important documents.  We found social security numbers, retirement funds, bank accounts and access numbers, birth certificates, death records, and court documents.  Family photos were mixed in and laid out naked.  Most interestingly, we found a day planner that had notes in it like "J. shot the dog.  I recorded it.  Police notified."   "Harassment case filed."  "J attacked me again today. Attorney and Police notified."  The further I read the worse it got.  We found letters filing for restraining orders.  The woman who wrote the journal seemed constantly afraid.   She had notes documenting sexual abuse and violence and  animal murder. We kept digging, we couldn't help ourselves and we found that the man and woman who had lived there divorced.  She got the children and accused him of many horrible things.  Clearly,
she was afraid.   He wasn't paying child support and was constantly harassing and stalking her.  I liked this woman.  I think she was French.  She had meetings at the French consulate.  She owned horses and was involved in dressage.  I think the barn in the back was for horses.  The woman's notes made her seem like a loving mother who was trying to maintain normalcy but couldn't stop the fear that was a daily reminder of her J.  She obsessed over barking dogs and the neighbor's poodle.  Everything scared her.  It was possible she was paranoid, but I am more prone to believe the fear was based in reality.  At this point, I wouldn't have been surprised to find her skeleton buried in the walls.  It was dark and sitting in this half burnt, abandoned home reading this felt more than a little creepy.  Every stupid, horror movie I had ever seen began flashing in front my eyes.

After we were done with the papers, we explored the barn, where the two cars had just been abandoned.   We are going to continue researching this case because it feels like whatever happened in this house, it couldn't have been good.  The house was abandoned with important documents and notes and cars and records in it.  Someone tried to burn it down.  The woman who had lived there had lived in constant fear of J. who killed her dogs and attacked her.  The house definitely feels haunted by something.  My son and I are going to keep digging because this house feels like it houses a mystery and a haunting that probably shouldn't be forgotten.  So we will keep reading and see if we can find out what really happened in this burnt, corpse of a house.  Maybe nothing special happened, but I still want to know.