Ghosts

Chapter 1

I started having ghosts haunts from the time that I was a small child up until my early thirties and then one day, the haunts just stopped. What once plagued my existence is now just a dark distant memory. However, the scars still remain and even though it has been nearly eighteen years since I've had a haunting, I still jump when I hear a loud noise or get a chill down my spine when I hear the creaking of a door.

On one occasion, I remember it as if it was yesterday, my mom had rented a house in Bethany, Oklahoma. Small rural town outside of Oklahoma City. The house was fairly new, built in the 70's. I was 16 at the time. I remember that it was around October because the leaves had just started changing and you could smell fall in the air. I was lying in my bed sometime around 9 pm, reading a book with my door closed when a small boy looking around eightish or so appeared in front of me wearing the style of the 1930's clothing with a Brixton hooligan hat on. I noticed that he wasn't dressed in farmers clothing, something that you would expect to see in that neck of the woods. Instead, he was dressed in city clothes from what looked like he had come from money. He was looking at me while pointing at the wall. A paralyzing fear came over me and I yelled out that there was someone in my room. When my brother David, whom was in the next room over watching tv heard me yell out he came and kicked in my bedroom door. The ghost boy vanished within seconds. David walked the room and searched the closet but there was no boy to be found. I slept with my door open that night.

I didn't see the ghost boy again but I started having extreme nightmares of a boy buried alive behind a wall and he would be crying out to me while scratching on the wall trying to get out and then I would see his hands coming through the wall like he was trying to reach me. I would wake up in a cold sweat but what was even more bizarre is that I also started having extreme nightmares of sheriffs from the early to mid 1800's escorting prisoners on horse back to a prison. They would torture these men and break one of their legs so that they wouldn't try running during the transport. These dreams were so vivid as if I was literally there watching this. A few seconds after I would awake from the nightmare, I could still hear the men screaming. I could no longer take the nightmares so I ended up moving out and staying with other family. I never understood the connection between the boy from the 30's and the sheriffs from the middle 1800's. I often wondered what was on the land before the housing addition was built. Maybe it was an adult prison in the mid 1800's and then later turned into a boys home. I just don't know. It is the only explanation that made sense to me. How else could I have been haunted from two entirely different time periods at one time. I often thought about returning back and researching the land where the house in Bethany now sits, but with the extremities of the haunts as a child that I endured, I have fear that I might accidentally re-open the door. Thanks but no thanks. I like my peaceful, everyday normal life now. Boring and quite.

Chapter 2

I have several stories like this through out my life. When I was in my late teens and early twenties I moved around a lot, as any young adult did. And I always knew within two weeks if a place was haunted or not. If it was haunted, whatever sixth sense that was in me would wake up whatever was in the house. And that would be my cue to leave. Fortunately, it only happened about forty percent of the time. Everywhere else I lived would end up being fine. No ghostly ghouls haunting me. This is when I started realizing that ghosts are connected to a place not a person. Of all the times that I experienced a haunting, after I would leave, I never once experienced that particular ghost or those particular nightmares again. In other words, I was never followed. I have heard of cases where people have left the house or apartment where they were being haunted and the ghost followed them. I am not disputing that, I just know that I experienced several haunts from as early as I can remember up into young adulthood and every time we moved when I was a small child up until all the times that I moved as a teenager and young adult, I never once had a entity follow me from one place to another. I guess I should be thankful for at least that.

To be honest with you though, it wasn't so much the ghosts that disturbed but the horrific nightmares that would come afterwords. They would be gruesome, showing the evil of a man's heart and what he is capable of doing.

Even after I had forced myself to wake up, the pain would still linger around for a few seconds. Crazy as this sounds, I know what it feels like to drown, be shot, be stabbed, have a limb cut off and to be smashed with a car. I think that somehow the death of the ghosts were manifesting themselves onto me in the dreams. I used to wonder if there were other people that was experiencing the same type of haunts that I was experiencing but I never asked in fear that people would think that I was crazy. I would go to the library and look for books on it. I found plenty of information on ghosts but I never found anything on the nightmares or why they were occurring after I would see a ghost. Even sought out counseling once, trying to get answers but was told that it isn't possible to feel pain in dreams and that people don't dream in colors. Well, mine were quite colorful to say the least so I just dismissed what the psyc told me and never really thought about it again. I figured that this was just a part of my life and that I needed to get through it the best that I could. Oh, and don't ever tell a psyc that you see dead people. Mellaril, Lithium, Prozack, here you come. So if you have had similar experiences, relax, you are not crazy. Maybe a little loopy, but defiantly not crazy, and the good news is that we live in an open minded society today due to social media so people are a lot more susceptible to believing you which enables you to reach out to others that are having the same experiences. I would even suggest starting a small support group. Like anything else, it helps if you have support and can share with others that have or have had similar experiences. There are even some great groups of the paranormal on Facebook that lets you share your experiences and get feed back. I highly suggest that you reach out. Some of these malevolent spirits can be very dangerous. You are not alone.

Chapter 3

Unfortunately, growing up in the eighties you just didn't talk about stuff like this so you were isolated and alone. The places that were haunted where I lived as a child and young adult would always be the same scenario, from the landlord and the neighbors, to my family, no one ever saw anything out of the ordinary and there were never any complaints from the previous tenants. So why is it, that one person can live at a residence and have just a peaceful, cozy little life but then another individual can move into the exact same residence, and all hell starts breaking lose.

This takes me to the story of the Amityville house located on Long Island, New York where Ronald DeFeo shot and killed six members of his family on November 13, 1974. Claimed that the voices told him to do it. This sounded more like a demon possession instead of the fact that Ronald was haunted. Anyway, after such a violent brutal massacre, obviously, the house is going to be haunted. That is , if you believe the theory that haunts are ghosts that died violent deaths and haven't moved on because their death was so sudden that they don't realize that they are dead. The Lutz family moved into the Amityville house in December, 1975. One month after Ronald Defeo was convicted of second degree murder. Within 28 days of living in the house, the Lutz cut and ran claiming that they were terrorized by supernatural powers in the house. Hence, where the Amityville Horror movie came from. And no offense, but that movie scared the hell out of me. Especially the scene where the priest went upstairs to bless one of the bedrooms and the door slammed shut on him, then the priest started to choke. After a couple of minutes, the door slowly creaked open and a loud raspy voice said to him, 'Get Out.' Yes, that would have defiantly been my cue to leave the house never to return.

It was rumored that what the Lutz family experienced in the Amityville house actually had nothing to do with Defeo murders. That George was missing around with the occult and somehow summoned up the bad spirits. I'm sorry but I don't buy that. Number one, Ronald Defeo was hearing voices to kill his family. That is demon possession. And two, six people were murdered in that house, creating a great platform for a demonic haunting. I think that what happened to the Lutz family had everything to do with Ronald Defeo and the murders. You have to remember that in the middle to late seventies up until the early to middle eighties, screwing around with the occult was very popular. And Ouija was an everyday household item. I think that when George Lutz moved into the house and started messing around with the occult he wakened the sleeping giants that were already in the house. I also believe that the accounts are true, because no one moves into a house using all of their financial resources and then just leave the house just 28 days later not taking any of their stuff with them. Landing them into the poor house and eventually leading to their divorce. Not to mention the priest that was involved and hearing his true accounts about what happened.

Whatever evil that was in the house, after the Lutz left, was put back to sleep because there have been four families that have lived in the Amityville house including the brother of a local real-estate agent named Gerald O'Neal. Not to mention, that there hasn't been one single incident involving ghosts, demons or the supernatural since the Lutz family moved out. I think that Defeo was an open door to demonic influences and that George Lutz re-opened the door messing around in the occult. Who is to say though what really happened. But for all you 'curiosity killed the cat' gurus out there, you might be interested to know that the Amityville house is currently back on the market for $850,000 through Coldwell Banker Harbor Light. Who knows, maybe you and your family will be the next hit horror movie. Which leads me to the next story, and how the Bible and ghosts are connected.

Chapter 4

I went out one evening when I lived in Davis, California. I was 24 years old at that time. Just a young pup in a great university town. Loved how most of the locals road bikes instead of driving. Just a great hippy town. Anyway, while I was sitting at the bar at this popular pub off of D street, don't really remember the name of it now. It's been 28 years or so. This student and his girlfriend sat down next to me and something caused us to strike up the conversation about ghosts. The guy started to explain to me that there was a small room at the top of this fraternity house where he had pledged that used to be the attic but had been converted into a storage room slash library for the house. Then he began to tell me about his experience with a ghost that he had encountered in the frat house in the attic room. As he was telling me the story, I searched his girlfriends eyes to see if he was telling me the truth. I could tell by her expressionless face and the way she sat on the edge of her bar stool, I hung on every word knowing that he was telling the truth. He continued on to say that part of the frat houses initiation was that the new 'pledges' had to engage in a seance in the attic room of the library. This guy went on to say that he thought that it was no big deal at the time since he didn't believe in ghosts and evil spirits so he agreed to do it.

On the night of, the students entered the room. He went on saying that there were four of them and that they had brought some candles and a ouija board with them. They lit the candles in a circle around them and then sat on the floor Indian style and placed the Ouija board in the middle of them. They were given one hour before they could leave the room once the seance started. Then he continued to tell me that they were up there cracking up while lighting the candles thinking how ridiculous this was . None of the guys, he added was taking it seriously. But they figured, what the hell. If it will get them into the fraternity, that is all that matters. Then he went on telling me, about twenty minutes or so into the seance and screwing around with the Ouija board, all hell started to break lose. He said that the books and papers started flying all around the room hitting the guys in their heads and that this large black hooded figure appeared with what he described, looked like a creature that had two faces that were burnt together. As he continued with the story I noticed that he was starting to become nervous in his speech. He went on to tell me that the faces were very grotesque looking and that there was a very strong odor of burnt flesh in the room. The guys started screaming, he explained, but because he had been raised in a Christian home, he immediately thought to go after his Bible. When he returned to the room, he lifted the Bible in front of this entity and the entity vanished along with the bad smell. After the guys cleared out, the fraternity decided to board up the room. Needless to say, that after this experience, he went on to tell me that he didn't join the fraternity and that he rededicated his life to Christ and never went back to the frat house. This story shows that good is greater than evil. That in the spiritual realm, the light always cancels out the darkness. There is nothing like a ghostly fright night to push someone back into the arms of God. So what was it about the Bible that forced the entity to go back from whence it came? Or was it the faith of this young man in the Bible that conquered this entity. Truly hard to say. 

Chapter 5

All I know for sure is that ghosts have been around since the beginning of recorded history. From the Shabti dolls from Ancient Egypt that led the Egyptian's' spirits into the afterlife after death some four thousand or so years ago. To the famous ghost story of Ancient Egypt called 'Khonsemhab and the Ghost' which was ghost story found on fragments of pottery during the Ramesside Period of 1186-1077 BCE. The story goes that this restless ghost came to this Amun priest named Khonsemhab and was complaining that his tomb had deteriorated. In Ancient Egypt times, this was a big deal. They believed that death was a paradise and that if a spirit returned he would not be lacking in disappointment, distress or loss.

In the King James Bible, it refers to ghosts or spirits of the dead as ' familiar spirits' and warns us against having anything to do with them. 'When the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, it is a spirit; and they cried out for fear'( Mathew 14:26 KJV.)

In the Greek Bible, ghosts are referred to as fantasmata meaning 'ghost.'

In the Roman times during the reign of 'Brutus,' it is said that the ghost of Julius Ceasar came and haunted Brunus the night before his battle at 'Philippi' which caused Brunus great distress on the battlefield.

The native Americans believed then and now that they can interact with ancestral spirits through prayer and ceremony. Believing that Indigenous people are more sensitive to supernatural phenomenon because, as Native Americans, they believe that they are closer to 'the veil' that divides the spirit world from the physical world. But not even native Americans will mess around with ghost figures called 'skinwalkers.' They won't even say the word in fear that it will bring one of these skinwalkers into existence and then the skinwalker literally hunts you until you are dead. It scares me even writing the word down. Time to start looking over my shoulder.

And who can forget Eastern Europe, the ghost capitol of the world. Plagued with ghosts stories from their brutal past of torture, wars and of course the infamous Bubonic plague better known as 'the black death' that wiped out over fifty million people from 1347 until 1351. And then of course burning people to death for being witches. You name it, Europe is defiantly the king of the wild and crazy world of the supernatural and ghosts are his queen. But whatever the case, ghosts are here among us. However, most of them are quite harmless, just more scary than anything else. But others, not quite so harmless. Defiantly the ones that you want to avoid. So we can come to the conclusion that ghosts are manifestations of spirits that have not yet passed on.

Chapter 6

And what about the people that actually see these ghosts? Are they super sensitive to their origins, closer to the veil, have an enhanced sixth sense that other people don't have that allows the supernatural to be able to manifest into the physical realm through them.?What is it? I don't know. All that I know is that I was an open door to these ghosts and haunts throughout my entire childhood until my early adulthood and then it just stopped. Nothing for almost eighteen years now. Knock on wood.

I don't think any of us will ever truly know the answers to these question until we die. Hopefully, not returning as ghosts though. But one thing that we can be sure of, there are too many stories throughout time, including accounts in the Bible to simply dismiss the existence of ghosts. And if you feel that you have a haunting but not sure if it is friendly or hostile, put a camera up where the entity is the strongest and record the activities. If it is a hostile ghost then you might consider moving but seek out professionals first just to make sure. You don't want to move unless necessary and you don't want to stay if you or your family is in danger.

So if you find yourself in an old musky house and you hear the creaking of a door opening and you feel something touching your leg while you are lying in bed but nothing is there, then you my dear friend have a ghost.

The End