Spooky Houses - Spirits of the Good and the Damned

I obviously struck a cord with many of you in my last email about spirits and old houses or antiques. Do old houses and antiques take on the energy of their previous owners? Why is it that some houses "feel right" or "wrong"? Now I know that a haunted house story is good for business as one writer said - but you be the judge. I do know however that some of your stories gave me major goose bumps. Here's the E Tip that started all of this:

I was just going through some old issues of a magazine published in Canada that my neighbor gave me last year. One article caught my eye and I thought I'd share it with you. It was about how antiques absorb energy.

The article tells the story of a young couple, newly married, going through the Quebec countryside on their honeymoon. They stop at a small town where a country auction is taking place and before they know it they have purchased an antique mirror... without knowing what  they have really bought.  

Both husband and wife love to look in this mirror. The wife loves to comb her long hair in front of it while her husband watches her. But something starts to change. When their eyes meet in the mirror there is suspicion.. he begins to believe that his wife is so beautiful that it is impossible that some other man has not made advances to his wife. She begins to think she has married a cold, suspicious stranger.....   Several weeks later the telephone rang. It was the auctioneer's secretary. She wanted to know if they were ready to return the mirror to the auction house to sell. Surprised, the young couple wanted to know why. She explained to them that the mirror had been returned three times to the auction house after selling. This happened ever since the original owner of the mirror found out his wife was having an affair and choked her to death while she sat in front of the mirror combing her hair...

Is the story true? Who knows for sure but there are many stories like this. I remember when I had my store that there were pieces that I wanted to sell very quickly just because they felt "wrong". Has this ever happened to you or someone you know about? Please share your story!

Dear Johanne: Loved the story of the mirror!   I have worked in the past as a professional psychic ( now I just work privately when I want to) -and what the article suggests is quite true.   Personal items, such as furniture, homes, jewelry etc DO hold the emotional energy imprints of their previous owners- and this is especially true of antiques, as well as older homes.  

About 15 years ago, I bought a lovely Victorian home in a small town east of Red Deer. I did not do my homework. It was a *very* unhappy home with quite a tragic history. Had I known what all of the locals knew,  I never would have purchased it.

There were clues within the home, but I chose to ignore them. For instance, the interior was painted grey; the windows were all sealed shut from the inside, and the lovely west facing sun room windows had been boarded over with tongue and groove fake log siding on the outside. If I had been paying attention, I would have perceived that here was a house that was not welcoming, rather it was trying to keep the world out, and something else, in. But, like I said, I ignored the signs and bought the house anyway...for $33K..almost too cheap.

  I took one of my dogs with me one day as I was moving things into the house...the dog got as far as the dining room, stopped, and was staring at something I could not see. He began to growl, and walked backwards, hackles up, from the dining room to the back door and proceeded to shred the curtains hanging on the door, scratching frantically to get out of the house. That should have been another clue for me, but in for a penny, in for a pound. Animals can see spirits quite clearly, and are excellent energy barometers. It is also extremely unnatural for an animal to walk backwards- in this case, walking backwards never taking his eyes off of what he could see, but I couldn't.

  We got moved into the house, with many strange things occurring during our 2 year stay- rocking chairs that rocked by themselves, boiling water coming up through the toilet, and cold water pipes, even though upon inspection trying to detect the problem three different journeymen said it couldn't happen. Voices, and the sound of ice tinkling in glasses, the smell of cigar smoke after dark, when no one smoked in the house, and the sound of a cat meowing, when we didn't own a cat.   I was awakened different times by my youngest son talking to someone. I asked him who he was talking to, and he would reply, "I'm talking to the man sitting on my bed. His name is H."...and on one occasion, I actually saw a depression on the bed, as if someone was sitting there.   That was when I decided to look into the history of the house- which I might add contained two mirrors in both bathrooms, that were original to the previous family.

The previous owner, H. had quite a drinking problem. One night, he had a head on collision, driving drunk, and five people in the vehicle he hit were killed. He himself was left in a wheelchair, never to walk again. He was very angry and bitter- not allowing himself to have indoor water or electricity- and sure enough, neither of these amenities were installed in the house until after he died in 1986. His wife committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning in the garage a few years later.

The mirrors in this house were ...odd. It was quite an uncomfortable experience looking into them. It made one uneasy, like you were being watched. All had this unnatural energy emitting from them. On one occasion, a guest completely ignorant of the house's history, ran out of the bathroom white as a sheet, and left the house abruptly a few minutes later. She had been washing her hands, looked up into the vanity mirror, to see an older woman staring back out at her.   This energy transferred to other mirrors in the house as the "haunting" grew in magnitude and malevolence. I removed all of the mirrors in the house, finally not being able to bear looking in to one to put on makeup or do my daily grooming. The energy in the house became more and more oppressive- with many strange incidents, sometimes with clear harm intended to the living. Finally the energy came to a head when my fiancé attempted suicide...in the garage.

  At that point, I put the house on the market at public auction, and within a month, had moved back into the city, being sure not to take anything original to the house. Taking the last load from the old house, I went back in and began a cleansing and banishing rite- more so to ensure that whatever unhappy spirits were there, would stay there. As I made my way downstairs, I could hear glass breaking in the upstairs...and sure enough, as I was making my way through the house, glass in various windows and doors was cracking and breaking for no apparent reason. Some doors even slammed shut of their own accord. That was one place I could not get out of fast enough, and was glad to shake its dust from my feet.

Thank you to Fiona for sharing her story with us!

Dear Johanne, I enjoy the stories but in reality, I am a pragmatist (and a scientist). The stories to me are fun to hear but are fantasy. I volunteer as a tour guide at an old county jail that is now owned by our preservation group. Once in a while a ghost hunting group comes in to look for ghosts, but I have never heard of any being found.

Thanks to James C.

Dear Johanne : I have a friend who owned a house in Temple N.H. When her daughter was little under age 3, Donna could hear her daughter talking to someone during nap time. when she asked her daughter who she was talking to , the daughter said Hanna and Jared. She also at times would hear children's voices  and laughter in only one part of this old hose built in 1759.

She decided to investigate the history of the house. She found out that the house had been struck by lightening in the 1700's, and had burned down except for the original living room to the house. (the only room she ever heard the children's voices) the house had been rebuilt shortly after the fire. But there had been a tragedy during that fire. three children had been sleeping in the attic that night. when the lightening struck the roof, the beam fell down and killed two of the children- Hanna and Jared. She visited their graves at the old town cemetery.

 When her daughter became older, she stopped talking to the ghost children. and their laughter only returns every few years or so. but she can count on them visiting when a happy occasion occurs , such as a child's christening. She could feel  Hanna and Jarad watching over her second daughters bassinet. The room would become cold, when they would be in the room.  

I had a second friend who owned an old civil war house in McDonaugh, Georgia. They only owned it for a year. they too bought this house for a very low price. Shortly after purchasing it, she would smell cigar smoke in the kitchen (no one smoked in her family) then weeks later dishes stated flying across the room. The spirit was very mean.

The final incident before they moved out was, she and her husband were laying in bed upstairs, when they heard a blood curdling scream downstairs, someone was running up the stairs with wet feet, flying past their bedroom door, then they heard window glass shattering. They jumped up , ran to the next bedroom, nothing was disturbed. They sold the house but did not disclosing to the new owners - the ghost. They checked backs months later with the new owners, nothing was mentioned about any strange happening in the house. all they could figure out of was that the ghost did not want them to live there.  In the history of the house, they found out a Union soldier has been shot on the property.  

Thanks to Cathy S.

 

Written By Johanne Yakula

Sources: From Times Past Antique Furniture and Accessories

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