Seances, Mediums and Ghostly Encounters

Throughout my life, there have been a litany of things uncertain and unexplainable, like ghosts. Legends and ghost stories of battles between good and evil and scrapes with forces beyond my control. There have been spiritual and supernatural moments beyond definition and knowledge borne in relationship to time like a faith developed of a different awareness. The awareness is the extraordinary sense of the spiritual, the paranormal or something just outside intuition, like an unproven understanding, but a known mystery. Understandings, instincts and mysteries have led to questions unanswerable, to searches and ghostly encounters.

Why would a ghost need to open a door? Or was stepping through walls an accomplishment of some spirits? Why would one spirit radiate while others exuded a menacing dark? Why would some touch with connected consciousness while others seemed indifferent to interaction? Why would one speak and another remain silent? Why were some more of a dread than a concrete encounter or haunting? Could there be structure to the haunted existence? Or was it more chaotic, and less orderly than the physical universe?

Conflicting views of religion, spirituality and awareness were filtered through my youth presenting many questions. My grandmother said there was no such thing as hauntings and ghosts. She said it was nonsense. If you riled her enough, she would say "devil's nonsense", grab you by the ear and take you to the Reverend.

My mother was young. In some ways, I came up with her. Away from her home, she explored questions of her own, often outside the realm of mainstream religion. She read widely and grew with the culture of her time. Her actions were a curiosity and harmless in intent, but for every haunted verification, there was always another question. And it was the questions that drove my mother and I and two of her friends to gather Indian style, palms up and in a circle for a séance. Someone had placed a bible in the center of our touching knees with a white candle on top.

We were the four appearing serious, but doubting in our hearts. We expected everything and nothing to happen. In my brain, at 14, the adults were crazy for looking solemn and chanting as if a misty platform would present a hologram in the middle of us. Why had they locked the doors as if they wanted to keep threats out? Didn't they know they were calling the dead, the ghostly into our home?

They continued to chant while I wished we'd hold hands. I alternated between squeezing my eyes shut and watching the creeping darkness. The chanting softened becoming a trail of silence, a sensitive listening. Not even our clothing rustled a sound. The air became leaden and still. Our minds waited, holding the silence as we tried not to wonder what would happen. Would the ghost appear?

The air exploded into a wind as if the windows were suddenly thrown open. The space popped and cracked like an announcement. We hung in space, not floating, but no longer grounded. The wind halted when the candle blew out. The instant dark rendered our hearts immobile and our vision crippled. They wouldn't run and I could not. I was suspended, dangling in time, afraid.

One friend began to talk in a strange voice, older and wiser than his own. The atmosphere seemed sucked hollow as the voice began to speak to my mother. I felt confused. I was learning about my mother's first love from a dead man's perspective. I was mesmerized by the occurrence, but more so by the information. Even more unreal than the paranormal activity was the dawning realization that I was the daughter of the voice! But I had a dad already! And I didn't want a new one.

My head was spinning as the medium stopped talking abruptly looking blank eyed and questioning. What just happened? He didn't remember a single word! And more stunning was the dispersal of everyone. I felt zapped by iced lightning. Where did everyone go? What had I just heard? Was it just a voice or a ghostly encounter?

I retreated to my room and wondered at many things. The changed atmosphere, the voice, the words, the wind, the candle. I felt a sudden connection along with a splintering of self. Questions echoed through my mind and finally I heard the voice of my grandmother: "devil's nonsense!" But I knew she was wrong and that I would always have questions about the paranormal. I couldn't pretend that it didn't just happen and yet, that is exactly what I did.