LJ Idol Week 6--Topic: Ghosts
I don't have a ghost story to tell. I know and have known many people who have seen ghosts, had unexplained events happen to/around them, and otherwise experienced supernatural phenomena. But, not me. I have yet to see a single spirit, unless you count bottles of rum. I've seen (and helped consume) a lot of those. ;) Still, I'm terrified by the idea of seeing or otherwise interacting with a ghost.
When I was a kid, I had a couple of friends who used Ouija boards and swore by them. At a slumber party, not so surprisingly, the Ouija board came out. I was both skeptical that it was bunk and afraid that it'd work. We were instructed to sit in a circle, each with a finger on the planchette (we didn't know it was called a "planchette", it was "the triangle thing"). We then sat and waited for it to move. It didn't move, much to the surprise of at least a couple of the girls present. I have to admit that while I was a little disappointed, mainly I was very, very relieved that the existence of ghosts had not been proven.
More recently, I've become aware that I live near one of the most haunted places in the world, Waverly Hills Sanatorium, which is at the top of the hill from Waverly Park. The sanatorium has an interesting history. That link can tell you a lot about it, but if you're truly interested, do a Google search and read some other sites (like the wikipedia entry) to get more of the history of the sanatorium.
Waverly Park, however, is what I'm going to focus on. This park is the location of the first time I've had subjective evidence that "something" is out there that can't be explained by science. I visited sometime in the late 1990s with my then-boyfriend (now husband), who told me that something evil was there. While I believed he thought that, I didn't believe it was true, so I asked him to take me. He was reluctant, but finally agreed.
We went during the day (despite my skepticism, I've watched too many horror movies to be stupid enough to go at night, heh). There were families there, but even when we first entered the park, something felt a little...off. I decided I was just looking too hard and wrote it off as me being silly. He took me up into the woods, which is where he felt it most strongly. I tried really hard to see if I noticed anything, but nothing. We kept walking, and then BAM. There it was. Nothing I could see, nothing I could point to, the sun was even still shining, but I Would Not Go Any Further. Something dark was indeed there, and had managed to get through whatever it is about me that makes me largely immune to supernatural phenomena.
We turned around and headed back to the car and made a hasty retreat out of the park. Still, the "feeling" remained. It took a long time and a lot of effort on our part to get it to go away. I thanked Jason for taking me to the park and then told him I never wanted to go again. We next had a long discussion on what might have caused whatever the heck it was to be at that park. The main answer was, as you might have guessed, Waverly Sanatorium.
At the time, it was abandoned, but people would break in and wander around because it had a reputation for being haunted. Amusingly, the plans for it around that time were for it to be converted into a church and for it to have a HUGE Jesus statue put on the roof. Considering the level of negative energy in the park, I was not surprised to learn that the project was an epic failure. My favorite theory for where the "thing" in the park came from is all the negative energy from the horrible conditions at the sanatorium, the agonizing deaths from both the TB hospital and the sanatorium, and then the feeding into all that negative energy by people coming to find ghosts or otherwise get their thrills from visiting "haunted" abandoned property. Somehow, all that got pooled down into the park. I don't think it's an entity, because to this day I still haven't seen a ghost or supernatural being (to my knowledge), but I have definitely felt positive and negative energy, starting with that day at the park.
Since then, occasionally during our recreational drives (which have basically stopped due to the high price of gas), Jason would take us by Waverly Park just to "get a feel" and see if whatever it is in the park is active or dormant, but he doesn't usually tell me that's where he's headed. I have a bad sense of direction, especially in that area of town, but every single time he's driven by it, I can tell...not by sight, but by feel. I get nauseous every time we get near the park, and it clears up when we're about a mile or two away from it.
As for the Sanatorium, the current owners sell tours of the place, anything from a 2 hour tour to 4-8 hour overnight tours. They get a lot of business too because of its reputation for being haunted. I wonder what, if anything, the commercialization of the "haunted" sanatorium has done to the energy in the park, or heck, to the presence of ghosts in the sanatorium. Various reports seem to indicate that ghostly activity is, well if not alive, certainly still kicking. I sometimes toy with the idea of going. I figure, if I'm going to see a ghost, Waverly Hills Sanatorium is a good place to find one. In the end, I know I never will go. Aside from the negative energy in the park (which I can only assume is surrounding the sanatorium as well), I don't really believe that I'll see a ghost...but I don't want to find out if I'm wrong.
When I was a kid, I had a couple of friends who used Ouija boards and swore by them. At a slumber party, not so surprisingly, the Ouija board came out. I was both skeptical that it was bunk and afraid that it'd work. We were instructed to sit in a circle, each with a finger on the planchette (we didn't know it was called a "planchette", it was "the triangle thing"). We then sat and waited for it to move. It didn't move, much to the surprise of at least a couple of the girls present. I have to admit that while I was a little disappointed, mainly I was very, very relieved that the existence of ghosts had not been proven.
More recently, I've become aware that I live near one of the most haunted places in the world, Waverly Hills Sanatorium, which is at the top of the hill from Waverly Park. The sanatorium has an interesting history. That link can tell you a lot about it, but if you're truly interested, do a Google search and read some other sites (like the wikipedia entry) to get more of the history of the sanatorium.
Waverly Park, however, is what I'm going to focus on. This park is the location of the first time I've had subjective evidence that "something" is out there that can't be explained by science. I visited sometime in the late 1990s with my then-boyfriend (now husband), who told me that something evil was there. While I believed he thought that, I didn't believe it was true, so I asked him to take me. He was reluctant, but finally agreed.
We went during the day (despite my skepticism, I've watched too many horror movies to be stupid enough to go at night, heh). There were families there, but even when we first entered the park, something felt a little...off. I decided I was just looking too hard and wrote it off as me being silly. He took me up into the woods, which is where he felt it most strongly. I tried really hard to see if I noticed anything, but nothing. We kept walking, and then BAM. There it was. Nothing I could see, nothing I could point to, the sun was even still shining, but I Would Not Go Any Further. Something dark was indeed there, and had managed to get through whatever it is about me that makes me largely immune to supernatural phenomena.
We turned around and headed back to the car and made a hasty retreat out of the park. Still, the "feeling" remained. It took a long time and a lot of effort on our part to get it to go away. I thanked Jason for taking me to the park and then told him I never wanted to go again. We next had a long discussion on what might have caused whatever the heck it was to be at that park. The main answer was, as you might have guessed, Waverly Sanatorium.
At the time, it was abandoned, but people would break in and wander around because it had a reputation for being haunted. Amusingly, the plans for it around that time were for it to be converted into a church and for it to have a HUGE Jesus statue put on the roof. Considering the level of negative energy in the park, I was not surprised to learn that the project was an epic failure. My favorite theory for where the "thing" in the park came from is all the negative energy from the horrible conditions at the sanatorium, the agonizing deaths from both the TB hospital and the sanatorium, and then the feeding into all that negative energy by people coming to find ghosts or otherwise get their thrills from visiting "haunted" abandoned property. Somehow, all that got pooled down into the park. I don't think it's an entity, because to this day I still haven't seen a ghost or supernatural being (to my knowledge), but I have definitely felt positive and negative energy, starting with that day at the park.
Since then, occasionally during our recreational drives (which have basically stopped due to the high price of gas), Jason would take us by Waverly Park just to "get a feel" and see if whatever it is in the park is active or dormant, but he doesn't usually tell me that's where he's headed. I have a bad sense of direction, especially in that area of town, but every single time he's driven by it, I can tell...not by sight, but by feel. I get nauseous every time we get near the park, and it clears up when we're about a mile or two away from it.
As for the Sanatorium, the current owners sell tours of the place, anything from a 2 hour tour to 4-8 hour overnight tours. They get a lot of business too because of its reputation for being haunted. I wonder what, if anything, the commercialization of the "haunted" sanatorium has done to the energy in the park, or heck, to the presence of ghosts in the sanatorium. Various reports seem to indicate that ghostly activity is, well if not alive, certainly still kicking. I sometimes toy with the idea of going. I figure, if I'm going to see a ghost, Waverly Hills Sanatorium is a good place to find one. In the end, I know I never will go. Aside from the negative energy in the park (which I can only assume is surrounding the sanatorium as well), I don't really believe that I'll see a ghost...but I don't want to find out if I'm wrong.