American Ghost Society Open House-What Happened

The house where the 1949 exorcism that inspired the William Peter Blatty book and the hit movie is still standing in St Louis...and something remains behind. That and more was discussed at the annual American Ghost Society's Fall Open House in Alton, Illinois.

It was SRO at Riverboat Molly's History and Hauntings Bookstore yesterday (Saturday, 10/03) during the the free open house where speakers delved into the supernatural. Part of the reason was a row of chairs not put in up front because of the pull-down movie screen overhead for one of the presentations. But also, I'm sure that there were simply more people than in past years.

A quick summary of what happened:

Author and Society founder Troy Taylor talked about his visit to the house in St Louis where the 1949 exorcism involving a young boy took place, all as part of a Halloween radio event. He was interested in seeing the place he'd written up in a book a couple years before admitting to the radio host that it was strictly curiosity; the event that had brought them there, after all, had occured nearly 60 years ago. Troy is ultimately somewhat skeptical about it all, but keeps an open mind and that's led to about as many books to his name as years of his life. Troy talked about how in all his writing about ghosts and even ghost investigations, he's only had two occasions when he saw a ghost and both times he freaked. At the exorcism house (now a private residence), he got to the door of the allegedly possessed boy's bedroom and found that he simply could not enter. When he did finally go in, he started having breathing problems and a racing heart and had to leave, never to return to the room. He compared it to discovering you've unsuspectedly walked up on a snake. Three contestants selected on the radio program were taken into the bedroom one at a time to spend one hour to win the big prize, whatever it was. Everyone else left the house so the contestant was along. One declined, of the other two, the best record was one guy who made it 12 minutes. The third person, a girl, made it two and a half minutes before she began shrieking--Troy played the tape. Troy's conclusion: he's still unsure about the nature of the possession. On the other hand, the church was convinced enough in 1949 to authorize it, even though the case did not really fit all the criteria for exorcism (remember Father Karra's testing of Megan to confirm she was possessed?). Nevertheless, in his opinion, a residue of whatever did happen remains.

Jeremiah Niere talked about Zombie Road, a rural area in the south St Louis area along the Meramec River in the Six Flags Over Midamerica region. The focus was largely on bizarre deaths such as a canoeist who's boat disappeared and his body was pulled up by some poor trotline fisherman who thought he had a big catfish or a turtle. But the capper was an interesting photo of Shadow People, the featureless humanoid forms seen at some locations like the Waverly Sanitorium in Louisville. In this case, the photo was of a forested skyline in winter and among the trees on the ridgeline in the background (not at all that distant from the camer's point of view) were six or eight distinct, shadowy humanoid figures. The kicker was that in the pondwater below, which reflected the ridgeline behind the pond, you saw the trees but not the dark figures.

Adam White of New Age Paranormal, accompanied by his wife and another NAP member, discussed experiences in Decatur's Lincoln Theater, how he received clawmarks on his back when he conducted another investigation, and, of special note, his own experience with a shadow person in the Ohio prison where the Shawshank Redemption was filmed. As two or three people stood talking quietly in a row of cellblocks, one of them noticed a head and shoulders poking out of a cell way down the block, as if someone was looking at them out of curiosity, before disappearing again back into the cell. Needless to say, they were the only ones actually there.

A couple more speakers shared some ghost experiences, a drawing was held for door prizes -- books (my friend Dawn, who'd never been to one of these before, got one of Troy's books, Haunted New Orleans which she gave to me), and a lot of people were buying books from the shop. We skeipped the after hours events so we could get back home. Besides, I've been on a few of them already and, also, they sell out quick.