Paranormal Quiz Time! - Answers

So here are the answers to the paranormal quiz. (Grizelda Mumenschotz, you got just about everything! I’m impressed!)

1. Denizens of Victorian England told ghost stories at Christmas time, having story-time both Christmas Eve and Christmas night. Can you picture them sitting in a darkened room, close to the fire, telling chilling tales in hushed voices? What a cool idea!



2. Sara Winchester kept construction going on The Winchester Mansion throughout her entire life in an effort to keep away the spirits of those killed by Winchester guns.



3. The Mel Meter 8704 was invented by electrical engineer Gary Galka, whose daughter Melissa (Mel) died at the age of 17 as the result of a car accident. After her funeral, everyone in the family became convinced that Mel was trying to contact them by switching lights on and off, moving things, and eventually producing EVP (ha! That answer comes later!) Mr. Galka constructed a device that would allow for easier communication with his daughter. The number of the model indicates the year of her birth (1987) and the year of her death (2004).



4. “Goat-sucker” is the ever-lovable chupacabra, “noisy ghost” is the translation from German for poltergeist, and “shtriga” is Romanian (also close to the Polish word for it) for vampire.



5. The married demonologist and medium are Ed and Lorraine Warren.



6. Their demonologist nephew who had his own show is John Zaffis, “The Haunted Collector.” By the way, both the Warrens and Mr. Zaffis have a museum of haunted objects. Annabelle lives at the Warrens’ museum. I don’t think I’d visit either place even if they were open to the public.



7. EVP is electronic voice phenomena (picked up on a tape recorder or other recording device).



8. EMF is electromagnetic field. (Changes in the field, as indicated by an EMF detector, can mean the presence of a spirit or entity.)



9. Two haunted museums, both the site of murders committed by axe, are The Lizzie Borden House, also a B & B in Massachusetts, and The Villisca Axe Murder House in Iowa. (Grizelda, were you watching Kindred Spirits?)



10. The community of psychics, mediums, and spiritualists in New York is Lily Dale.



11. The similar community in Florida is Cassadaga.

So how did you all do? Want to play again??? Let me know…

Hand-Crafted Blessings. Hand-Crafted Malevolence?

I knit prayer shawls. I’d been hearing about them for years before I tried my hand at it, and then a close friend developed some serious health issues and I thought I’d make one for her.

In case you might not know what a prayer shawl is, according to The New Prayer Shawl Companion (by Janet Severi Bristow and Victoria A. Cole-Galo), the term originally was “associated with the tallit worn by Jewish men and some women,” but now has an expanded meaning to include “gifts, livingly stitched into being by the shawl maker…Well wishes, good intentions, and thoughts for the recipient are added into every stitch.” The Prayer Shawl Ministry is an international group that makes shawls to be given out to recipients who, chances are, may be complete strangers to those knitting or crocheting the shawls. Most groups, who are all volunteers, meet in a church and do needlework together; it’s a time for both socializing and for prayer.

I am not a member of such a group, although I very much admire what they do. They distribute shawls to friends, and friends of friends, far-away relatives, and perfect strangers: anyone in need of a prayer, a blessing, and some warmth. I work on my own and give them to people I know who are going through a hard time and can use some gentleness in their lives. And like those in the Ministry, I try to stitch good thoughts and positive energy into what I knit. After making my first shawl, I started making them for other friends who were all dealing with an illness, or who were caregivers for loved ones who had health issues.  I love making them, and even had the opportunity to knit one at the request of a recipient: she wanted to give one to her sister.

But then, being me, my thoughts strayed to the opposite side of a prayer shawl. Probably because I once read a book called Stitches in Time, by Barbara Michaels. I don’t know if anyone else reading this has ever enjoyed a Barbara Michaels book, but if you haven’t, you might want to give her a try. She writes stories that are filled with hauntings, but not with slasher-type horror, or heavily-evil presences. If you ever saw the Barbara Stanwyck made-for-TV movie “The House That Wouldn’t Die,” that was based on a Barbara Michaels book titled Ammie, Come Home. And anyone who has seen the movie will recognize that phrase immediately.

Stitches in Time is a book about a quilt made during the 1800’s, and the person sewing that quilt had good reason to imbue the fabric, the thread, and the needlework itself not with prayers, but with a curse. In the book, the twentieth-century woman who eventually comes to own the quilt runs into the still-potent malevolence woven into the otherwise beautiful, historically-important coverlet. (Even typing that synopsis out now, I think to myself, what a FANTASTIC idea for a story! I remain a big fan of Barbara Michaels!)

So I went online, looking for the possibility of a quilt that might have a curse – or many – sewn into it, but didn’t find anything beyond superstitions involving quilts. Most of those were pretty mild, like if you start a quilt, make sure you finish it or you may never marry. But something as strongly paranormal as suggested in the book by Michaels didn’t crop up for me. A pity. I would have loved a good cursed- or haunted-quilt story!

I imagine that in the end, anything made by hand could be charged with either good or positive energy by the person making it. I think about the haunted paintings I wrote about in my Facebook post last week. In “The Haunted Collector”, John Zaffis even talked about how a painting could hold onto the artist’s energy since that artist had put so much of her- or himself into the finished product. By extension, I suppose that would hold true for anything like a quilt, or a hand-knit article, or in a writer’s case, the original manuscript. I believe that. After all, I’m the one who can’t hang out in antique stores without becoming overwhelmed by what I feel there. And those are just items that a person owned. An item a person actually created would surely have an even stronger attachment than just a possession.

Got anything hand-knit, hand-sewn, or hand-crocheted that’s been passed down to you? Just saying…