Field Report: Haunting of the Estranged Sister

I’ve decided to try out some more field report style blog entries. A lot of my blog is sharing ideas and speculating, but I don’t talk enough about the lived experience of these things. I’m going to try writing about things just as experiences, not necessarily sharing the sum of my experiences, such as I am with the Starry Path material, but just the experience as it is. Since these are just the experience don’t expect anything overarching or lessons learned, just “This was my Tuesday.”

I got a request from a friend of mine to look into a haunting, it had been a while since anyone had called me in for that. I like investigating hauntings, while I wouldn’t call myself a medium, I can get info from/about spirits and work with that. Often I’m called in for an exorcism/banishing, despite the fact that’s very rarely needed or appropriate. Sometimes people are a bit let down that I’m not running around with a cross yelling about the “Power of Christ” but in the end folks are happy with the results, even if it has a lot less sparklebang than they were hoping.

This haunting investigation got my interest for two reasons; it was from my friend’s sister who had essentially disowned her due to her spiritual beliefs, and the sister was a material atheist. You know a haunting has to be bad when a material atheist is willing to turn to the occult to handle it. The day I was originally supposed to go in to look at it there was a major snowstorm, and we postponed almost a month.

I’ve already shared all I knew when I was heading to the haunting. The house was about fifteen minutes from the subway, and it was a surprisingly nice day so I walked it. En route I started picking stuff up. Apparently this is not that uncommon, some people think it’s actually the spirits communicating before you arrive, personally I think it’s more psychic perception and precognition. The spirits aren’t coming to me, I’m picking up instances that will occur, or perhaps part of my mind has jumped ahead and is in contact with the location before my body arrives.

As I’m walking I’m getting impressions of an old woman, her hair is still dark, short in stature, and I’m not sure if she can speak English or not, but she’s definitely of Eastern European descent. I presume she’s related to the haunting I’m approaching. She seems to be a mix between sad, frustrated, and angry. She doesn’t really say anything, that’s rarely how I perceive spirits, but I can tell that a lot of her emotions are due to being ignored, but she’s not taking it personally, it isn’t about her, though that doesn’t make sense.

I get to the house, meet my friend and her sister and enjoy the wonderfully awkward and strained vibe between them. I quickly pick up a few things, the woman is definitely from this house, and the wall is covered with icons from an Eastern Orthodox tradition. I don’t mean that any of them were currently up, but even looking at the nature scene paintings around the room I was aware of icons hanging all around in the past, in the house as the old woman knew it.

The old woman doesn’t strike me as the type to require calling someone in for a haunting, but she does have her temper, so I could be wrong.

Due to the nature of the haunting, and my friend’s request for her sister, we performed a chöd ritual. This ritual was offered to the spirits of the area, the old woman, but really any spirit that wandered by could join the feast.

As we perform I become aware of the old woman, leaning against the door frame into the dining room, a dishtowel on her shoulder, just watching and smiling. Again she just does not seem like the troublesome haunting type, nor did any of the small random spirits that popped in.

Reaching out I struggle to find what the haunting could be, maybe the sister was wrong? I don’t know how to describe the next perception that well, but essentially I “rewound” the perception of the space. It’s even more murky than my normal perceptions, but can give me a sense of if something had happened, and it had, but I was no closer to knowing what.

After the ritual the sister begins to explain some of the backstory; she’s lived in the house for a decade and while there have always been little things, she could ignore and rationalize them. Then her husband died, a few weeks before the initial investigation was scheduled. Her husband died and activity spiked. She didn’t think the activity was her husband though, she said it didn’t feel like him, and was often too aggressive. Since there was always activity in the house though she was worried that something might have been happening with her husband and the spirit(s) that haunt the place, a type of struggle between them perhaps.

Again, it doesn’t seem to be the type of thing this old woman would do. I mention my perception of the woman, and that she doesn’t seem the type to do this. This was apparently correct, the person they bought the house from had explained that she lived in the house for a few years after inheriting it from her aunt, who was a short, devout, Ukrainian woman. This all fit my perceptions, but still left the problem open of what was this haunting? Was it really just this aunt moving minor things and the current owner overreacting? Where did the dead husband fit into the picture?

As I pondered I suddenly “got it,” the type of knowledge download where everything clicks. I explain this to the owner. She has cultivated the ability to ignore what is happening for years. Unfortunately that meant when her husband passed she did not pick up on the times where he tried to contact her. It seems like he was a fleeting presence, just a day or two trying to say good-bye, but unable to do much.

That’s where the dead aunt comes in. She was livid about this: how dare this woman ignore her husband? He’s trying to say good-bye, the least she could do was listen!

The increased activity was originally this woman trying to get the owner’s attention, and then was her annoyance that the owner didn’t listen when she had the chance.

Insert a period of discussion and crying between my friend and her sister about missing her chance to say good-bye. (Call me to handle the dead people, don’t expect me to deal with emotions)

Finally we closed with a discussion about the woman, and how to be accommodating with her. She’s just a friendly old aunt lady, who happens to lack a physical body. I’m sure I’ve said it here before, but I’m not a fan of the whole exorcise and banish at the drop of a hat. Most spirits are decent enough, and the majority of hauntings I’ve dealt with can be addressed by clear boundaries, and sharing the space. This was no different. It boiled down to asking the dead woman to not be disruptive (though again, she really never was until the husband died), but also finding a space and item to offer to the woman as something that is hers in the home. I gave a few suggestions, but don’t know what the owner decided on.

My friend has not reported back with any continued haunting, so hopefully the issues have been addressed.