Spiritualism and the Paranormal

The more you want something, the sooner it becomes a reality as the saying goes. Think of the genie in the bottle who grants you only three wishes. If you're not careful, however, what arrives most of the time isn't what you had in mind. Such can be the case with the spirit world. In this story, a group of young adults drive around late into the night looking for a thrill and get the fright of their lives. Aerial view of West Seattle and Alki beach. A short bridge in West Seattle spans over a narrow, but deep, ravine popular for suicides near the Admiral Theater and Alki Beach. Rumor has it that passers-by would see the figure of one of the many pitiful souls who took their own lives by jumping off the span landing onto the pavement below. They say that it stares at people at the beach near the scene of his death. Along side him is his dog who followed his master into the afterlife. Like many teenagers, Mike, a relative of his and a couple of friends, knowing of this tal...

Sometime in the 1980’s Wilmer and his family were looking for a larger house to move into since his blended family there were already 12 children. They were able to find a house with enough space for them all, an old farm house built in the early 20th century in Pasco, WA. This is a story based on a friend’s experiences in his childhood home in eastern Washington state. House basements always seem to hold the darkest secrets and in this story, the center of the activity was near the drain.   When his family moved in, he and his brothers took the rooms in the half-finished basement. Half of the space was built into a few bedrooms. The other half was open and bare with a dirt floor. His older brothers took the finished rooms leaving Wilmer with the unfinished area with a drain. It was there in case the basement flooded. The house had settled since it was built, however, and the drain no longer was below the level of the basement floor. In fact, it stuck out as if wanting someon...

I drove home that early morning going over the events that had taken place within the past hour (“ The Uninvited Passenger ”). I mentally reviewed Tina's story – her ability, her history with her mother, the strong scent of perfume, the hairs standing on end at the back of my neck. I no longer felt scared, but I had a sense of validation that these phenomena existed. The further I got from Tina's, the more curious I became of her abilities. I wanted to know more. Over next few days, Tina and I talked about her ability to see spirits and about the spirit that followed her that night in great detail. Tina had tried to ignore the spirit one day, she said, and in retaliation, the spirit unleashed the most foul stench that lingered for days. It was the smell of death, of decomposition, of putrefaction. It was so bad that it didn't escape the noses of the people whom she lived with. They searched the house for any small animals that might have snuck into the house and had die...

When I mentioned to a friend about this blog, he shared with me a few experiences that he had while he shared a house in the Central district of Seattle. The following is one of his experiences during his five-year stay. Before living at this house, Evan was a complete skeptic when it came to the paranormal. He believed that everyone who had a ghost story was trying to get attention. Since living at the house, he has become a believer. Last I heard he had moved out several years ago. When I asked him to tell me one of his stories, he didn’t know where to begin because he had so many experiences. Because it was October at the time I asked, he decided to start with his first encounter. You could tell from the manner in which related the story that it was genuine. One night in October of 2009 Evan was in his bedroom when he heard someone wrapping on his window. He found it strange since his room was on the second floor! How could any one reach it? He rationalized it away as one hi...

I’ve watched almost if not all of the episodes of Celebrity Ghost Stories . Some of the stories are from famous people that are well know and others that are not as well known. Some of the stories I’ve watched were entire bores while many are ones I like watching over and over again. In the end, it goes to show that the paranormal touches people from all walks of life. Nonetheless, one celebrity that I haven’t seen on the show is singer, song-write and actress Cher (born: Cherilyn Sarkisian). Cher is said to be a “hard core believer”. When asked if she was afraid of ghosts on Reddit , she replied she believes that the ghost of her late ex-husband and former mayor of Palm Springs, CA, Sonny Bono, plays pranks on her. “…Absolutely not!!! I love ghosts. I actually think that Sonny makes a light go on. I have a beautiful chandelier that he makes the light go on when it is impossible, there is no power on. I love ghosts, I prefer ghosts to some people…” Since this story is out, I doub...

Since it's October with Halloween at the end of this month, I decided to detail an experience I had with the paranormal around this time of year several years ago. The odd fact of the encounter was that it was not associated with any particular place. It was, in fact, connected with a particular person.   In the late Autumn of 2004, just before Halloween, I was in between jobs. I was not overly worried about my employment situation because I knew that it was just a matter of time. I had enough experience in my field that I was receiving e-mail messages from recruiters and companies that I could extend my "vacation" as I thought of it. Instead of looking over my messages or searching through job listings, I spent much of it with two friends: Tina and Yvette.   "... It was the drive that morning when something followed us..."    I met Tina through a mutual friend. She was living with her boyfriend in a house that our mutual friend's father owned. After tal...

“…He heard the footsteps make their nightly path up the stairs. This time the footsteps stopped just short of his door. Instead of following their usual route, he heard angry stomping and screaming as they descended into the basement…” In the late 1990s, Wilmer moved into a duplex in Eastern Washington state with his friend and her daughter. “Just around the time when the movie ‘ The Blair Witch Project ’ hit the theaters,” he told me.   The first months after moving in were peaceful. But after two, he started to hear heavy footsteps, made by boots that only a man would wear, come from the basement. They would continue up to the first level and go further up to the upper floor where the bedrooms were. The footsteps would come up to his door, when it would open, and continue to the adjacent room where his roommate’s daughter slept.   At first he thought that his roommate was checking up on her daughter since her schedule had her...