Ghost Conventions - They're a Thing

For the past several years, my ghost-hunting/writer friend Sylvia Shults has been doing a presentation or two at the Psychic and Paranormal Expo out in either western Illinois or Iowa, and she has graciously invited me to tag along to share her vendor table and sell books. The Expo feels like coming home! There are aisles and aisles of vendors for Tarot card readings, mediums, crystals, art, jewelry, natural health and beauty products, angel readings, Reiki treatments, and all sorts of things that would drive the average skeptic screaming from the room but are a lot of fun for the rest of us. The best thing is eavesdropping on people talking about dead relatives visiting, auras, bad energy in their houses, and other topics that pull my focus as soon as I hear certain words. Like “ghost” or “medium.” People who stop at our table frequently will share a ghost story or strange experience with us, and that’s just awesome.

However, much as I love this Expo, I have realized there are conventions and conferences devoted strictly to the supernatural, and boy, would I love to go to one of those. (Bucket list, anyone?)

There’s a huge one in Sault Ste. Marie every year, and it costs megabucks and sells out in a flash. It’s already sold out for 2019 (it’s happening August 22-24) but I can understand why. In addition to presentations on things like paranormal investigation, psychic abilities, demonology, and UFOlogy, they have big-name guests. And I do mean big names: The Dead Files’ own Amy Allen; Ghost Hunters Grant Wilson, Steve Gonsalves, and Dave Tango; ex-Ghost Hunters turned Kindred Spirits Amy Bruni and Adam Berry; my favorite collector John Zaffis and his “tech guy” Brian Cano; even psychic Chip Coffey. And that’s just page one of their listings. Would I love to go to that? In a heartbeat.

There’s also something called The Horror Expo-Ireland and that sounds pretty amazing itself. Going to Ireland would be a dream. Going to Ireland and also attending The Horror Expo might sound like a nightmare, but it’s even dreamier for me. They last held it on Halloween, 2018, and I can’t find a listing for 2019 anywhere. But I did sign up for their updates, so we’ll see if I hear anything and I’ll be sure to share, in case any of you are wandering across the pond at an opportune time.

The closest I’ve ever gotten to a straight-up ghost convention was about six years ago. Sylvia was again doing a presentation and also helping out with a paranormal investigation down in Okawville, Illinois. Yes, that’s a real place. Everyone who signed up for her talk and for the investigation got to stay on-site of the event, which was taking place in the Original Springs Mineral Spa & Hotel. The hotel dates back to the nineteenth century and is haunted, so everyone joining in the fun got to stay overnight, eat one of the hotel’s famous fried-chicken dinners, and would then be equipped with investigative devices like EMF detectors. I’m sure someone had a spirit box or Ovilus as well.

Jim and I spent the night BEFORE the event (we were actually on our way to Springfield by way of Breese to take a look at the famous Cholera Cross), but we got to see Sylvia speak. Sorry to say we missed the chicken dinner!

It was fun watching everyone growing more and more excited as the time of the investigation drew closer. This was an enthusiastic bunch, primed for anything paranormal and gleeful with anticipation. I almost envied that. Almost: still not ready to go on a ghost hunt myself!

If that was just a small taste of the excitement generated at a ghost convention, I really want to go. I’ve done Comic Con and seen what those passionate about Marvel, DC, Star Wars, Star Trek, and Game of Thrones can come up with in their native stomping grounds. They were a lot of fun, too. But I sure would love the opportunity to compare and contrast those super-fans with the followers of the paranormal.

And Why Would I Have That In My House?

 

Most of us collect something. Collecting starts in childhood, right? Baseball cards (for those of us old enough to remember that), Pez dispensers, comic books, cookbooks, decorative plates, you name it, someone collects it. 

I had collections when I was younger, too: I liked boxes, the weirder-shaped the better. I collected clippings on rock & roll bands and in high school, on a particular sports celebrity. I hoarded yarn, knitting patterns, and wildly colorful socks. As I grew into adulthood I turned to gargoyles, books about ghosts, and books that hide secret compartments, that is, containers designed to hang out on bookshelves even though they are not actually books. I've always had a thing about secret compartments, whether an actual hidden room or the smaller kind of cache like I own-just large enough to hold jewelry or special letters and cards or even other small collectibles.  And I still like boxes, although the ones I collect these days are made of wood and part of a sparse collection because they tend to be a bit pricey. 

Other people I know collect antiques. And yes, I have visited this particular topic before, but after watching one of my Haunted Collector repeats (they're all repeats; for some inexplicable reason, SyFy cancelled the show. Boo! Hiss!), I saw an antique that to me was so outside the pale that I can't

imagine wanting to buy it and bring it home. But more on that later.

People who collect antique knick-knacks, photo frames (without those scary pictures in them), silverware, or china cups are understandable to me. The woman I saw on TV, however,  who bought and displayed coffin plates in her home, astonished me. Back in the olden days, coffin plates were nailed to the tops of occupied coffins that were kept in storage to await burial when the spring thaw arrived. So this very brave (or crazy) woman had the genuine coffin plates off of some peoples' winter coffins hung upon the wall outside one of her bedrooms. YIKES! 

Then there's the whole porcelain doll thing. Except for clowns, nothing gives me the willies like a porcelain doll. I take that back: a wax museum would do the trick. But I can avoid those. There's no avoiding the dolls when you're visiting someone's home for the first time and realize that they collect these things and have have a score of them on display on their shelves. All those glazed eyes staring at you when you enter the room. And you can't tell me that they don't move on their own when no one's looking. I KNOW they do.

So that brings me to the particular Haunted Collector item that freaked me out so much that I thought about it for days, unable to reason out why someone would want this in their own home. The particular antique store that John Zaffis and crew were investigating had an effigy doll. Ever hear of one? I hadn't until I saw the show. An effigy doll was something that parents had made when they lost a child. A cast would be made of the dead child's face, and then that would be used to make a doll that could be dressed up just like the child would have been while alive. I understand grieving parents wanting to have something like that, I really do. No parent should have to bury a child. On the other hand, some one-hundred years later when the entire family is gone or scattered, why would someone go to an antique store and decide they needed to buy that particular doll? Just looking at the one I saw gave me the willies. There was something about the way the eyes needed to be set in the doll's head, probably because the manufacturer was working with a completed face already. Needless to say, in the show, this particular item was known to relocate itself to different parts of the store, sometimes even to an entirely different room. 

I don't mock any parent's grief. I am sure an effigy doll might have brought comfort to those trying to live with the deep wounds left by the loss of a child. On the other hand, I am grateful to be in this time and this age of technology, where memories can be enhanced with photographs and videos.

Paranormal Reality TV and Research

I am addicted to quite a few paranormal reality TV shows. I guess that juxtaposing "paranormal" and "reality" would look like an oxymoron to quite a few people, but I'm an unapologetic believer so I'm fine using that phrase to describe what I watch. I call it "research."

I don't know if anyone reading this routinely sits down with the same shows, but I'll bet most of those who do aren't also sitting there with a notebook and a pen. I'm not kidding about the research. I've gotten amazing history tips from John Zaffis, The Haunted Collector. His show not only featured all of the client interviews, night vigils, cameras, recording equipment, and ruh-roh! moments as every worthy paranormal investigative show should, it also delved into researching the history of the site and the object/s he was investigating. And from that aspect of each show, I have learned about small pox, blood-letting, and 19th century cavalry uniforms, among other things. I also have a notebook with lists of bizarre details that are too good to forget about entirely; who knows when one of them will pop up in a Bridgeton Park Cemetery Book? I LOVE my research!

I have purchased the books written by Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson to give me something to do between seasons of Ghost Hunters, another one of my obsessions. (I only know one other person who dragged her husband out to hear Jason and fellow hunter Steve Gonsalves do a presentation at the haunted Rialto Theater in Joliet.) 

I watched Psychic Kids for years until it went away. I couldn't talk my husband into going to see Chip Coffey in person, so I brought my daughter and we teamed up with my friend, the one I ran into  -with her husband- at the Hawes/Gonsalves presentation. Psychic Kids taught me how paranormal experiences can differ so much from one person to the next, depending on the way the ability manifests for each particular psychic. And I also got to watch, on many a show, the interactions between a psychically-gifted child and a non-believing parent, interactions that help spur the conflict I write between Cassie and her mother.

I also regularly tune in to The Haunting Of... ,The Dead Files, Haunted History, and Ghostly Encounters. I would be watching Celebrity Ghost Stories if I could only find it on my service. I sometimes watch A Haunting. And I mourn the disappearances of The Haunted Collector and Psychic Kids.

I know I have written about all of this before and apologize to anyone who feels this column is a repeat. To help make this new again, I'll include this little tidbit: I only ever write my stories during the day. This dates back to when I wrote for a community newspaper and did the true ghost stories Halloween article. Something got very interested in what I was doing and made such a crashing disturbance in the garage that I thought the shelf had come off the wall. I was home alone when that happened, and I realized I could handle it during the day, but probably not at night... 

I know I've also mentioned that when I write about ghosts, my house comes to life. Things shift and bang. I sometimes hear footsteps coming down the hall toward my office. There are miscellaneous rustlings and shufflings coming from other rooms. It all stops when I stop writing, but it always happens. Even my husband has heard it and asked me, "What is that?" "Nothing, dear, just the usual when I'm working."

So here's my little tidbit: lately, while I sit with the remote in hand, watching my DVR'd paranormal reality shows, the house behaves the way it does when I'm writing. I can't decide it it's because restless spirits like watching shows about themselves, or it they're trying to get me off the couch and back to the keyboard. Whatever it is, it sure adds that little extra to the show I'm watching. And if I write down a description of the particular rustling or other disturbance I hear, that becomes part of my research, too.

Repossessed

A writer friend of mine who publishes under the name Scarlett Dean had a book out several years ago titled Unfinished Business. The premise is that objects can be haunted and that anyone who brings such an object into his or her home also brings along the spirit attached to it.

Apparently, for those of us who are open to the concepts of the supernatural, this is more than just a premise. John Zaffis, for instance, a paranormal investigator, has his own TV series called "Haunted Collector," a show that deals with disturbed objects and the folks who are being disturbed by them. Just recently, I saw a special entitled "Possessed Possessions" that was rather like a haunted Antiques Road Show, except it was on board the very haunted Queen Mary and the evaluations were not for current worth, but for current supernatural manifestations. People brought in their auction-bought antique dolls, inherited porcelain tea cups, life-size wax statues of Rudolph Valentino, and even a 19th century Colt once owned by a Texas Ranger. The psychics and other investigators would give a reading on each object and then ask the owners questions to ascertain the accuracy of their readings. 

The one question they never asked was "And why exactly did you feel the need to have this in your house?" I can understand inherited items. I don't get purchasing something as creepy as an antique doll that you subsequently relegate to the storage facility because you don't want to have the thing anywhere near you.

Of course, I am being far too harsh. There are a number of resale and thrift shops around my house, and one day, I became enamored of a set of nesting porcelain bowls. They were a beautiful peach color with decorative green leaf work on one side, and they were both stunning and useful. My husband bought them for me as a surprise present and I was thrilled with them. Until I got them into my kitchen.

For about, oh, 10 years or so, these beautiful bowls have been languishing in a cabinet just to the right of the kitchen sink. I don't know why I've never used them other than the fact that they make me uneasy. They are as striking as they ever were, but if I never bring them out to look at them again, that's fine. So why did they seem so beautiful but also so ordinary at the store and not in my house? I have no idea. 

If anyone hears of a haunted Antiques Road Show turning up in the Chicago area some time in the near future, let me know, okay?