Walking With Ghosts. Lisa Yorio

house is over 100 years old and used to be a physician’s office. She has heard noises in the upstairs bedroom many times.

       One night something startling woke her up. She heard the sound of footsteps walking up the stairs, someone enter her bedroom, and then she felt a presence sit down at the edge of her bed. The incident scared her so much, that she decided to move downstairs.

       In 2007, I saw the same doorknocker in a catalog. I immediately thought of Virginia. I laughed to myself. We lost contact and I hadn’t spoken to her in about 8 years. I started having dreams about her more and more until about a month ago. Finally, a mutual friend said she was trying to get in touch with me. I couldn’t believe it. We always seemed to have a psychic connection. We started emailing each other and I finally got a chance to speak to her. My dreams were a foreshadowing of us to make contact again. It was like a premonition. She told me about the experience with the doorknocker. I had told her that was a strange coincidence because I just saw the same doorknocker in a catalog.

       Could this doorknocker be a haunted object? Or could it be a ghost following her from a previous house? Sometimes the energy of a spirit can go into an object and possess it. When this object is brought into a house some paranormal activity may occur. The second theory I have is that a ghost can attach itself to a person and follow them around, especially if the person is sensitive to the paranormal. They act like a conductor by opening themselves up and allowing ghosts to latch on. The spirit may be drawn to a certain person because they feel that they will see or hear them. Maybe, Virginia has a sixth sense that the spirits picked up on. This could be why she has experienced reoccurring paranormal activity in both houses.

      FRED’S HOUSE

      PORT JERVIS - NEW YORK

      1990

       I had a good friend in high school named Fred. When I would go home to visit from college sometimes I would stay at his house. I remember one scary incident that happened in his house. I had just come home from a long 3-½-hr trip and I was exhausted. Normally, when I stayed over his house I would sleep in the living room on the couch. Since it was daylight and there were a few people in the house, he suggested that I sleep in his bedroom. I agreed that was a good idea. Within a few minutes I drifted off to sleep.

       As I was starting to dream, I could hear slight whispering near my head. The sound seemed to be coming from behind me, in the corner of the room. Then it sounded like men and women talking very loudly in a conversation. I couldn’t make out what they were saying. They were mumbling at first, then the voices seemed to be getting louder and louder. The voices eventually escalated in to shouting my name in my ear. It sounded like a bunch of people were standing over me trying to wake me up. I thought my friends were playing a trick on me. I woke up and looked around the room. I didn’t see anything unusual. I tried to fall back to sleep. I dismissed the incident as a dream.

       I finally fell back to sleep and the shouting started again. It was so loud that it woke me up again. Then the room was eerily silent. The voices stopped instantaneously when I was awake.

       At this point, I was truly terrified and ran out of Fred’s bedroom into the living room. My two friends were sitting on the couch watching television. Fred looked at the expression on my face and said; “did you hear the voices too?” I said; “yes, I think your house is haunted.” He admitted to me that he as well as a mutual friend had also slept in that room and heard the awful voices. He didn’t warn me of this because he wanted to see if I would have the same experience. Fred also said that he has slept in other rooms in the house but has never experienced anything abnormal. The only ghostly phenomenon that has occurred was in his bedroom. No other incidents have occurred since that day. We never did find out if the house was haunted.

       Eventually, Fred moved out of that house and returned to his hometown, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I returned to Suny Morrisville College, and forgot about the incident until many years later.

      THE OUIJA BOARD

       SUNY MORRISVILLE - NEW YORK

      1990

       I went to college at Suny Morrisville, New York from September 1989 to May 1991. I had a bunch of friends that were interested in the supernatural. We would get together occasionally and hold séances in our dorm room. We would use the Ouija Board. This device is used to contact the spirits of the dead.

       The Ouija Board has black letters and a planchette. It has the alphabet and the words YES, NO, and GOODBYE on it. When you begin, you place your fingers on the planchette and then you can ask the board questions. Two or three people can hold a séance. Three people are preferred because one can write down the words and decipher them while the other two keep the board going. If they take their hands off, they may break the connection of energy between the players and the spirits.

       You must be very careful when using the Ouija Board. It is rumored to be a doorway into another dimension. If you use the board, it may open a portal which good spirits as well as evil spirits may enter into our world.

       Sometimes if you go looking for evil, you might possibly find it. When using the board, be careful not to invite unwanted spirits into this world. A malevolent spirit can attach itself to you, causing trouble for the rest of your life. It is very hard to send this kind of spirit back to where it came from. The doorway to the other dimension is difficult to close. Evil spirits can lie and be deceitful. They can trick you into seeing what you want to believe. You cannot believe everything that the board spells out. Try to find evidence about what you’re being told is the truth.

       The evil spirits don’t always come through to communicate. Sometimes they may cause fear or inflict negative spirit activity. This can’t happen just by simply talking to them through the board. However, there is a higher chance that this could happen if you invite the spirits into this world. It’s recommended to say prayers to protect you before using the board. Also you must be open minded and willing to accept whatever comes through. You should treat the spirits with respect and ask if anyone would like to come forth and talk. Don’t expect for the board and the spirits to work every time. It takes alot of energy on both sides to keep the séance going. So if a spirit is having a hard time communicating or points to the word “GOODBYE,” then you should let it go. Then the next step would be for you to place the planchette also on the word “GOODBYE,” and tell it you are now leaving. This closes the board.

       When my friends and I were asking questions while using the board, we contacted a spirit of a little boy. He said his name was Leroy. He was eight years old and lived in the 1800’s. He said he died during an operation but he wasn’t sure what kind. This was a little eerie and sad. He seemed sweet and we felt great sorrow for him since he departed from this world at such a young age. We couldn’t believe he was trapped in our dimension for so long.

      Suddenly we lost contact and it was hard to find him again. Another spirit came through and took his place. This spirit wasn’t friendly and gave us very limited information on its identity. It kept spelling out the name “MaryAnn”. We continued to ask questions but it never answered any of them. It then gave us a message to “Open the door, MaryAnn”. Then we all heard three knocks at our bedroom door. We looked at each other but no one was willing to open it. We were all too frightened of the outcome. I glanced at my roommate who looked very scared and nervous. We decided not to play with the Ouija Board anymore.

       My roommate started crying and told us that before she was born her mother was pregnant. She had a miscarriage and lost her baby. She was going to name it “MaryAnn”. This could have been a coincidence, but we were too startled and too sad to pick up the board again.

       I didn’t play with the Ouija Board again until I was twenty eight years old. This time my friend Joann asked the board about marriage and children. I didn’t want to know my future so I didn’t ask it anything. It told her she would marry a man named Joe, and have one son who had blonde hair and blue eyes. About a year later, she did end up married to someone named Joe and had a son with the same characteristics that the board told her. This emphasized my belief that the board is connected to the other side. Luckily everything worked out for her.

      I still wasn’t sure if the Ouija Board was good or evil or maybe a little of both. So why take a chance with interfering with the future.