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…

Reading and Writing About Ghosts

I probably read at least four true ghost story books a year, sometimes (a lot) more, and sometimes less, depending on what I can find. I've been reading this material for so long that it can be difficult to find books with stories that I don't already know. For that reason, I now look for collections of tales shared by those who have experienced something paranormal, since those stories will be new to me.

Lately, though, I've been struggling to get through my beloved books, and I've been trying to figure out why. I think I might have an idea. If you have ever read any true ghost stories, you will know that they center around a place or an incident -- or even series of incidents-- that happened to someone. The story will include all the details that can make your hair stand on end or give you chills. That's the fun part! I think what's been on my mind is that most of these stories don't have any kind of resolution. Most of the time, no one ever finds out why this is happening. Why does this particular ghost haunt this place? Or person? Why does it disturb one special room, or do one specific action every night at ten o'clock? The details are always fascinating, but there are never, or rarely, any kind of explanation behind the haunting.

I think that may be why I write what I do: it lets me gather all the untidy and unexplained bits together and resolve them into one nice coherent story. By the time a reader finishes one of my books, if she or he doesn't understand the story behind the ghost, then I haven't done my job. 

I am currently reading a book of shared ghost stories that was put out by podcasters Tony and Jenny Brueski. Their podcast is called Real Ghost Stories Online and is centered around supernatural experiences that are called in by listeners. And the stories are both fascinating and frightening. But of course, for the majority of the tales, there is no explanation that can be shared. People move into houses and start experiencing unworldly occurrences, and who knows why that is happening?

The Dead Files, my favorite reality paranormal TV show, usually resolves the story, or at least a great deal of it, by the end. So did The Haunting of... with medium Kim Russo. And so did The Haunted Collector. Those shows are always at the top of my list and I think it's because they usually had some sort of conclusion. Don't get me wrong, though. I do still enjoy stories that investigate but do not present an explanation for what is going on in a haunted place. I liked Ghost Hunters and Celebrity Ghost Stories. I like Ghostly Encounters. And on a lighter note, I totally loved The Lowe Files! Those are sort of like "The-Journey-is-The-Point" kind of narratives and are fun in their own right. But I think that the ones that also have an explanation hit a different note with me, and so I go from "That was fun!" to "That was fun and really, really satisfying!" Since we're talking about the supernatural here, even I admit that sounds ridiculous, but there it is.

And so I guess I write my own stories so that there is a known beginning, middle, and end to the main haunting in my novel. (I qualify that because the ghost stories that my characters tell on Thursday night are closer to reality and frequently have no explanation.) But the novels I write will include a resolution to the ghost story. Cassie Valentine and Michael Penfield make sure of that.

And I guess that's the beauty of fiction. It lets me resolve, tidy, satisfy, and complete the story so that everyone goes away with a sense of completion. Unfortunately, life just isn't quite like that.

And Yet Another Haunted Hotel

The St. James Hotel in Cimarron, NM is one of the more famous haunted hotels in the U.S. Its history dates back to the 1800's, and it is steeped in Wild West lore and legend, for such legendaries as Annie Oakley, Buffalo Bill Cody, Jesse James, and Doc Holiday were known to have lodged there. It is also steeped in late nineteenth-century Wild West Violence.

From the twenty-two bullet holes that are still lodged in the three-inch wooden overlay above the bar's ceiling, to the ghostly perfume of the hotel founder's wife, the St. James is a hotbed of paranormal activity. It has been investigated and featured on Ghost Adventures as well as The Haunted Collector. The hotel boasts at least one room that is kept closed off to everyone, from staff to guests. And it has a ghostly cowboy who can only be seen in the mirror behind the bar.

Jim and I have friends who spent the night there, and while their experience isn't hair-raising or blood-curdling, it is definitely eerie.

Our friends are both musicians: she is a retired music teacher, he is a professional musician and producer who still travels for gigs and performances. Such was the reason for their journey to the St. James Hotel; he and his colleagues were booked to do a show there.

They had both heard that the place was haunted. She was more excited about it than he was, so while he went up to bed late that night, following the concert, she stayed downstairs and spent some time in the lobby and the bar, hoping to catch something paranormal in nature. When nothing happened for her and the hour was getting to be too late, she gave up and went to bed.

The next morning, she got up earlier than her husband and went downstairs to have breakfast, leaving him to sleep in as he usually does after a show. And that's how she missed the incident, and he had the experience she had been hoping for.

How aware he was that his wife had gotten up and left the room, I don't know. What he did tell me, however, is that he was awakened to someone knocking sharply on the bedroom door. It took him a little bit to realize what had disturbed his sleep, but the knocking came again, and he heard a voice calling out his name. So he got up, stumbled over to the door, and opened it, only to find no one there. He looked up and down the hall, left and right, and verified that nope, no one was anywhere near his room.

Confused and maybe a little annoyed at having to get up, he got dressed and went downstairs to find his wife. She was enjoying her breakfast when he came up to her and asked what she wanted. She looked at him in surprise and confusion. No, she told him. I don't need anything. And I didn't come and knock on the door. I've been down here eating. Her answer left him both astounded and perplexed.

This happened a while ago, but he can still hear what he heard that morning at the St. James Hotel: the knock, the voice. He thought it was one thing to find out that no one was waiting for him in the hall. That was strange. But I think what bothers him the most is that whoever, or whatever, stopped outside his hotel room, it knew him by name.

Hunting in the Dark of Night - Not Me!

Watching paranormal reality shows is one of my life's pleasures, even though Jim likes to say they really have nothing to do with reality.. (He's not that big a skeptic, he just likes to hassle me.) This is not news to anyone who reads this blog, even if just occasionally. So while I was musing over past episodes of Ghost Hunters, The Haunted Collector, and The Dead Files, I began to wonder: why do they do all their investigating in the dark?

Turns out I am not the only one who asked that question. I googled it, in fact, and was surprised at the number of hits that turned up. Skeptics as well as believers both agree that investigating in the dark adds to the "creepiness" factor of paranormal TV shows. No argument there. However, their thoughts take different paths immediately after that. The skeptics say that the darkness makes it easier to fake everything that turns up on camera. The believers have a whole list of reasons why they hunt -and film- in the dark, i.e., at night. 

That list includes: Less people around, therefore less interference both in general and in terms of energy; less electricity being used, therefore less interference in terms of electromagnetic fields; lots of ghost hunters have day jobs and hunting is a hobby, so there's really no choice with that; businesses being investigated can't close their doors to the public so investigations must take place after business hours; ghost hunters who have the high-tech instruments read a spectrum of light anyway, and some things are better seen on infrared; some say that since people are NOT nocturnal, their senses are on higher alert at night and in the dark, so they become more sensitive to even mild disturbances that might be ignored during the day.  I think that about covers it.

My friend Sylvia Shults is a ghost hunter/paranormal investigator, with a specialty in the Peoria State Mental Hospital. (She has written a book about it called Fractured Spirits and was even on Ghost Hunters!) All of her investigations have been at night (she has three jobs; this is a hobby.) She has also invited me along but since this is a volunteer as opposed to a high-paying endeavor (read: "I don't know if you could pay me enough to go there") I don't think I'll be going with her any time soon. She is currently working with a group that investigates all manner of hauntings, but I'd have to interview her and get back to you for more details on that.

The point is, her group also investigates almost exclusively at night. For them, the reasons seem to be the day job thing, and also the heightened sensitivity thing. I will take her word for it.

If hauntings exist, people say, then shouldn't they also be happening during the day? And the short answer is, of course they should. I know lots of stuff happened at my old house during the day, although even those spirits liked night hours. I could -and did- time the most disturbed hours in that house and they were between 10:30 pm and 1:30 am, with many and varied cameo appearances at other times. But I could count on things happening between the above-stated hours. Count on it. Despite the spirit behavior in my house, hauntings are not relegated to overnight hours. They can and do happen at any hour of the day, and people who look into these things will agree with that.

Still, the best hours for investigating the spirit world, even if just for how it looks on camera, seem to be at night. Night is the time of sleep, at one time referred to as "little death," and night is the world claimed by all the scary things, from ghosts, vampires, and werewolves to evil people doing evil things without the sun to reveal them. Night is the time I do not work on my books. Just because.

Some ghost-story writer, huh? I don't write at night. I don't read scary stories at night. And I don't watch my reality TV shows at night, either. The dark may put people on high alert and lead to heightened sensitivity, but in my case, it also leads to a heightened imagination. So I let the paranormal investigators have their day jobs and go hunting at night. I have my day job -and then I turn to the safety of mundane things and try to get a good night's sleep...

PS. Here's a pic of my favorite hunters:

Haunted Lecture

 A few months ago, I wrote about the possibility of individual things being haunted, as opposed to actually having a haunted house. And I think I mentioned the name John Zaffis.

John Zaffis has a TV show on SyFy, for those who aren't familiar with his name, and it's called "The Haunted Collector." The show is about Mr. Zaffis's travels around the country to help people who are having, for want of a better phrase, paranormal problems. Mr. Zaffis and his team of investigators will go to the person's residence or place of business and try to determine if the problems his client is experiencing are related to items within the location. To date, he and his colleagues have rooted out weapons used to commit murder, jewelry that still had the spirit attached to it, animal bones, and at least one cursed object. And that's just a short list. Once a disturbed/disturbing object is identified, Mr. Zaffis will usually remove it and bring it back to his haunted museum, where it will be safely stored in a sort of privately owned Warehouse 13, speaking of the SyFy channel.

A few weeks ago, while life was truly insane, my husband and I took an evening off to go see Mr. Zaffis lecture at a local community college. What an engaging evening! First of all, it was a chance to see a noted paranormal investigator tell his stories in person. Secondly, what an audience! But first things first. Mr. Zaffis had an entire PowerPoint slide show with topics like ghosts and spirits, or demonology. For a supernatural fanatic like me, this was hitting the mother lode. Toward the end of his presentation, though, just when he got to the topic of demonic possession, the computer went berserk and zipped through the remaining pictures like a cheetah on steroids -but with less grace and more disturbing images- terminating the slide show in a most unceremonious fashion until the process stopped at his icon-filled desktop. Mr. Zaffis seemed about as startled as the rest of us and asked if the college had a ghost. I suppose this might have been staged, but anyone who could see the bewildered expression on the gentleman's face, and I could, would say otherwise. So the bad news was that we never got to see the whole show.

The good news is that he then devoted himself to a solid hour of Q & A from the audience. Did I say something about the audience earlier? There were any number of ghost hunters and paranormal investigators sitting in that lecture center, and all of them had a question. Quite a few people seemed to be looking for personal help. And then there were all the questions about the TV show itself. Mr. Zaffis explained the difference between what he really does and what is allowed on the television screen. He has his frustrations ("They won't let me show the kind of precautions I take whenever I remove one of those objects and store it away") but he is also happy to share his knowledge to those interested in picking his brain.

I don't get to see his program as often as I would like anymore, but I was thrilled to have a chance to see the man in real life. He's funny and down-to-earth, and I did find myself lying awake later that night, mulling over some of his more frightening tales. A bit afraid to open my eyes in the dark? Check. Very uneasy about wandering down the hall to use the bathroom at two in the morning? Check. Sleep a long time coming with all those weird noises originating in a spot just left and a little behind my side of the bed? Check. I must have had a great time!