ghosts, spirits and the supernatural. what have you seen?
this was in the early seventies right after helter skelter. the manson family had been caught and tried. there was a lot of interest in not only paganism but also the black arts. the exorcist had came out and the horror genre of film and novels was really beginning to take off.
my mother became enthralled with the paranormal. i remember going with her and her best friend to a house in LA where they told me there were witches. sure enough there were hooded witches and warlocks with twisted daggers. we watched a ceremony performed in the dining room around a lit tree of candles. i wanted to go down the long hall of the house that led to the added-on temple at the end. they wouldn't let anyone down that hall. that always intrigued me.
years later after we moved to oregon she began holding seances. at first they were the legit kind. and everyone thought it was kind of cool. but nothing much ever really happened.
so she started setting up things to freak her friends out. she used to attach strings between my foot and a lamp or something. i would knock over the objects at the appropriate time. i was a good little actor. she also used to write things on fogged or dirty windows or behind things on the wall and reveal them when she had finally coerced the conversation in the direction of the subject she had staged.
it really used to freak people out. and my father used to be very scared of the whole thing because he was very catholic and thought that my mother was really messing with things she shouldn't be.
he might have been right because weird things started to happen in our apartment. things that my mother hadn't staged and things that were really scaring her and especially me.
once i had been clawed by something during a seance, the lights were out except candles and i was laying on the couch watching from a distance. i remember everyone screaming at one point and suddenly feeling a scratch on my ankle. they were perfect claw marks like that of a cat. i cried my eyes out that night and the seance ended right after that because everyone was so freaked out. we didn't have any pets.
there were other things like furniture being moved, things missing, pictures falling, noises, etc. my mother stopped doing the seances and confided in one of her friends that she had been faking a lot of the seances but also that things were starting to get out of control.
her friend got pissed, felt betrayed. so she told everyone. they staged their own gag on my family. while my mother and father took me out to trick or treat on halloween they broke into our house. they created a monster out of clothing, a wig, a broomstick and some of my toys from the toybox. they set it up in my parents room. then they removed the light bulb in their room and the one in the hall.
when we got home i was tucked into bed and my father went to the bathroom for his nightly grooming before bed. my mother picked up the house a bit and then went off to bed. but as soon as she reached her room she saw the monster. all she could see was the shadow and outline of it from the parking lot lights shining in through the drapes behind it. she screamed, she screamed at it, yelled at it. tried to turn the light on. the thing didn't move. it stood there dead still. as if it were waiting to pounce on her.
she backed into the hall and to the bathroom to retrieve my father but he and I were already behind her looking on in terror. my father backed down the hall did the sign of the cross and led us out into the front of the apartment. he went back in and eventually figured it out.
but it never really cured my mother. she still strongly identified with everythig paranormal. my relatives blame weird occurences on her whenever something strange happens. she passed away in 1999. she always promised my aunt that if there was an afterlife she would try and contact her. lots of unexplainable things have happened to my aunt and my cousins.
and last but not least for about 6 years in the nineties i had some odd unexplainable things happening to me. i was told by a number of people that i was being visited by a succubus. i'm not sure if that explains ir but it stopped happening after my mother passed away.
this was in the early seventies right after helter skelter. the manson family had been caught and tried. there was a lot of interest in not only paganism but also the black arts. the exorcist had came out and the horror genre of film and novels was really beginning to take off.
my mother became enthralled with the paranormal. i remember going with her and her best friend to a house in LA where they told me there were witches. sure enough there were hooded witches and warlocks with twisted daggers. we watched a ceremony performed in the dining room around a lit tree of candles. i wanted to go down the long hall of the house that led to the added-on temple at the end. they wouldn't let anyone down that hall. that always intrigued me.
years later after we moved to oregon she began holding seances. at first they were the legit kind. and everyone thought it was kind of cool. but nothing much ever really happened.
so she started setting up things to freak her friends out. she used to attach strings between my foot and a lamp or something. i would knock over the objects at the appropriate time. i was a good little actor. she also used to write things on fogged or dirty windows or behind things on the wall and reveal them when she had finally coerced the conversation in the direction of the subject she had staged.
it really used to freak people out. and my father used to be very scared of the whole thing because he was very catholic and thought that my mother was really messing with things she shouldn't be.
he might have been right because weird things started to happen in our apartment. things that my mother hadn't staged and things that were really scaring her and especially me.
once i had been clawed by something during a seance, the lights were out except candles and i was laying on the couch watching from a distance. i remember everyone screaming at one point and suddenly feeling a scratch on my ankle. they were perfect claw marks like that of a cat. i cried my eyes out that night and the seance ended right after that because everyone was so freaked out. we didn't have any pets.
there were other things like furniture being moved, things missing, pictures falling, noises, etc. my mother stopped doing the seances and confided in one of her friends that she had been faking a lot of the seances but also that things were starting to get out of control.
her friend got pissed, felt betrayed. so she told everyone. they staged their own gag on my family. while my mother and father took me out to trick or treat on halloween they broke into our house. they created a monster out of clothing, a wig, a broomstick and some of my toys from the toybox. they set it up in my parents room. then they removed the light bulb in their room and the one in the hall.
when we got home i was tucked into bed and my father went to the bathroom for his nightly grooming before bed. my mother picked up the house a bit and then went off to bed. but as soon as she reached her room she saw the monster. all she could see was the shadow and outline of it from the parking lot lights shining in through the drapes behind it. she screamed, she screamed at it, yelled at it. tried to turn the light on. the thing didn't move. it stood there dead still. as if it were waiting to pounce on her.
she backed into the hall and to the bathroom to retrieve my father but he and I were already behind her looking on in terror. my father backed down the hall did the sign of the cross and led us out into the front of the apartment. he went back in and eventually figured it out.
but it never really cured my mother. she still strongly identified with everythig paranormal. my relatives blame weird occurences on her whenever something strange happens. she passed away in 1999. she always promised my aunt that if there was an afterlife she would try and contact her. lots of unexplainable things have happened to my aunt and my cousins.
and last but not least for about 6 years in the nineties i had some odd unexplainable things happening to me. i was told by a number of people that i was being visited by a succubus. i'm not sure if that explains ir but it stopped happening after my mother passed away.
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i have lots of stories, but there is one that sticks out in my mind.
a few years ago my husband's aunt passed away. my husband's uncle was of course devastated to say the least. they were together for almost 30 years. he lives in san francisco, months and months later after her death he was downtown with some friends. he was thinking about her, but trying to move on. he said he thought to himself that he needed a sign that she was ok, he just needed to know. right then a white butterfly flew down and landed on his hand, sat there for a few seconds, and then flew away. his friends were all there to witness it. he said he just broke down in tears, but from that day on, he knew she was ok.
true story, when he told me this my hair stood up on my arms.