Winchester Mystery House....

William Wirt Winchester was a wealthy gun factory owner (Winchester Repeating Arms Company) who lived in the Victorian era. He had a wife named Sarah Winchester and a baby girl named Annie. A picture perfect little family...so far... Not long after, baby Annie died and fifteen years later, in 1881, Mr. Winchester followed suit. 

Sarah was left heartbroken and lonely but she was also left much of everything else. After her husband's death, she inherited around $20 million and 50% ownership of the company which means that she received around $ 1,000 a day (non-taxable until 1913). By today's standard, she received around $21,000 a day. She was a very wealthy widow. 

She turned to her friend, who was a popular medium, for solace. She told Sarah that the Winchester family might be cursed by the angry spirits killed by the Winchester rifles. She also told her to move out from her home at New Haven and to move to the West and to build a house for her and the spirits. Allegedly, she said, "Continue building, you will live. Stop building, you will die". 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winchester_house

Thanks to her enormous fortune, Sarah was able to build a sprawling mansion in San Jose, California. That mansion defies every architectural principles. There are doors that lead to nowhere, staircases that lead to ceilings,etc. Sarah was also obsessed with number 13. There are thirteen candle holders in the chandeliers, thirteen Tiffany windows, etc.

I shared her fascination with the supernatural but I think that Sarah Winchester was a heartbroken, turned crazy woman more than anything else. And her friend the medium was a nut job. Why would the spirits curse her family and seek vengeance from her? That doesn't make much sense to me. 

Take the tour of the Winchester Mystery House....if you dare....

http://www.lostdestinations.com/winchstr.htm 

Astral beings speak to us...

People have tried to communicate with spirits for centuries. One way to communicate with them is through a seance. The word seance originated from a French word which means "seat", "session" or "sitting". Usually, a seance involves a medium, which means a person who can see and speak to the dead. In some cases, the medium is temporarily possessed by the spirit as a way for the spirit to come forward or to come through. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Séance

 

The show "Most Haunted" on Travel Channel does a seance on every episode. Their previous main medium, Derek Acorah, got increasingly violent when he's possessed by a spirit. He would scream in other crews' faces and almost shove them at times, if not being held down by the others. He was dropped from the show because it was discovered that he was faking the possessions. According to Dr, Ciaran O'Keeffe, names would be whispered in his ears before the show begins to shoot.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEP0usvErRI

I believe in seance because I did it with a couple of friends years ago when I was in 7th grade. It worked because the spirit really came. The spirit was easy to get rid of. Who knows what might've happened if the spirit was hard to get rid of. Anyone who says that seance is a bunch of bull haven't tried it before or haven't got the guts to try it. 

Exorcism....

Exorcism is an ancient part of many religions and spiritual beliefs, although some beliefs don't believe in exorcism, such as Sikhism and Jainism. It's defined as an action of evicting demons or other spiritual beings from a person's body. People who perform exorcism are usually clergy or people who have the ability to perform it. Exorcists use prayers and other religious materials such as religious icons, symbols, etc. when performing exorcism. I believe in exorcism. I'd seen priests performing exorcism in my church (it's a Catholic church). If you read my previous post, you'd understand why I believe in it.

Possession....

From the point of view of believers, demonic possession is generally defined as the 'invasion' of a person's mind by a spiritual entity. There are four types of possession:
-Demonic possession: the person is possessed by a demonic entity.
-Reincarnation: the person's past life is taking over him/her.
-Spiritualism: the person (usually spiritual mediums) contact the dead and is temporarily being taken over by the spirit so other people who are present can communicate with the spirit.
-Channeling: a spirit takes over a person to impart spiritual philosophy.

I personally believe in possession because in her childhood, my mother used to live a haunted house. She said that house was definitely haunted because it was located near a big cemetery and an old hospital. Her neighbors and a couple of my grandfather's servants had seen some ghosts. One day, a relation of my grandparents came for a visit. According to my mother, he was a quiet and reserved young man. Lo and behold, he was possessed by a spirit and sure enough he was acting really weird. He would get angry for no reason at all and he kept saying how he wanted to get married even though he had no girlfriend at the time. He was then taken to a paranormal and the paranormal said that he was possessed by a female spirit. She had fallen in love with him and she possessed him so that she can 'marry' him. The freaky thing is, a couple of months later he passed away. He never recovered from the possession until his death.

Residual hauntings......?

There are several types of hauntings. One of them is residual hauntings. Residual hauntings don't involve the presence of spirits. Rather, they' re like the playback of past events.

In residual hauntings, the ghost or spirit doesn't seem to recognize your presence. It's because the ghost or the spirit itself is not really there. According to paranormal experts, building materials like nails or bricks have the ability to "record" events (especially traumatic events) that they "witness" and play them back, just like camcorders do.

Personally, I believe in residual hauntings because I've witnessed them. But I'm not too sure about the "building materials being able to record events" theory. Whatever cause residual hauntings is still a mystery to me. Got any explanation?

Trust your eyes....?

Do you think it's a real ghost captured in this photo? I think so. What do you think?

Was it real or am I just crazy?

I may sound nuts to some people but I actually find paranormal experiences exciting and thrilling. There's just something about being scared out of your mind that's oddly addicting (plus you have a pretty cool story to tell everybody afterwards). The way I see it, I'm quite lucky to have experienced a few paranormal occurrences.

I used to live in a big, old house in the Forest Hills area. There's a room on the third floor that I'd never been fond of. I always felt that there's 'something' there. A friend of my parents who spent the night actually claimed that she saw a man standing in front of the door one night.


One night, I was up late doing some assignments. Suddenly, I saw an old man dressed in white standing in front of my desk. It happened very fast, probably for just a couple of seconds. When I told my family, they just laughed it off. They said that I was just too tired and I was seeing things,etc.

This happened a few months after. I was sitting in the library/computer room, just e-mailing some friends. That room had always been warm because the window's always closed. All of a sudden, the room got very cold and I heard people whispering behind me. Again, nobody really believed my story.

Since I was the one who experienced these things, I think I know what I saw. If you were in my place, what would you make of these experiences?