Madison Seminary Ghost Investigation (Part IV – Silly Shadows, and Chöd)

For a more amusing side story, myself and two others decided to investigate a room down the hall, where the figure approached from. There were more children down there, peeking around corners and door frames. We were in the one corner room, trying to get one of the children to come talk. I’m sitting in the window sill, one of us on the floor, and one against the wall. The door opens into the room, and from where I’m sitting I can see between the door and the frame into the hallway, and as we talk, I keep seeing a shadow obscure the bottom of that crack between door and frame, like a child sneaking around the door to look in. It is very clear, I think it might actually have been physical sight. So I tell me friend to come sit where I was, and I shine a flashlight to the spot I keep seeing the shadow, I stand up walk into the center of the room, keeping my flashlight on, explaining what I’ve been seeing, and I want his take. I turn off the flashlight, and suddenly where there was just a blank wall before is a very dark humanoid shadow, clearly with a hand reaching out. For a split second I freak, I jolt, my heart jumps, holy fuck that’s the clearest shadow/spirit I’ve ever seen. For a split second. Then I realize, it’s my shadow, when I had the flashlight on you couldn’t see that light was shining in from the other window against the wall, and I walked right into the path of that light, but my flashlight hiding it and the shadow I was casting. So one the light was off, suddenly there I was against the wall with the light from outside. It gave me a good laugh about myself. No real moral, just remember don’t take yourself too seriously, and laugh at yourself.

All evening I have been on edge a little and honestly mildly frightened, like I said, unlike me, and I wasn’t alone. People in our group would go to the bathroom in pairs because we didn’t feel safe in those halls alone. I should mention that this group is largely experienced people, this isn’t our first haunting, but this one definitely got to us.

Finally I decided to do what I planned on doing as soon as I was invited. Padampa Sange said to Machik Labdrön, the founder of chöd my main Buddhist practice “Go to the places that scare you.” Chöd is about feeding spirits and demons, but it’s not a light or gentle practice, you don’t just do it at home, you’re to do it in cemeteries, charnel grounds, haunted places, “the places the scare you.” So I went up to the fourth floor, where I had the strongest impressions, I had my one friend accompany me, per my rule about being alone, and I explained that in chöd it might look like the spirits are attacking me, but for him not to worry unless I start showing clear physical distress.

I put on my domra, a type of ritual visor worn in chöd, it both hides my eyes from spirits so they aren’t scared away, but also distorts my vision enough that it makes perceiving spirits easier. I then began to play my damaru (drum), and sing. Chöd is a musical practice, while all the ritual work is going on you’re singing to the spirits, both explaining what you’re doing, and generating the force of it. Chöd is interesting, it’s definitely good at getting the attention of spirits, and it did just that. All the spirits in the room just kind of stopped for a moment, and turned to me, and approached. As the ritual went on, more and more spirits came, a steady stream of them came up the stairs into the room, but it wasn’t just the spirits of the haunting as we think of them, the inhuman spirits came too. Astral parasites and lower critters came in, more complex humanoid but clearly not human spirits came out, spirits of the land, and inhuman spirits that have just been attracted to the place. Afterward my friend said he was glad they were all focused on me, cause at one point he felt like spirits were literally crawling over him to get to me. I continue the ritual, the air becoming dark/bright with layers of spirits. I’ve done chöd in cemeteries and haunted places, but never have I experienced such a turn out. After quite some time of ritually feeding and offering the spirits, I had to stop. There is only so much I can do, and there were so many of them. The feast ends, the ritual ends, and the spirits disperse. I’m confused/startled for a moment, because my friend is still in the room, but so are several of our other friends, and two of the tour guides. With all the spirits coming up the stairs I didn’t notice a handful of bodies came up too. The room felt calm (according to the others), you could still feel spirits and activity, but it was calmed, contented, gentler.

With chöd you’re to go to the places that scare you, but chöd is a practice of fearlessness, throughout the ritual you access the realization that you are ultimately indestructible. For the rest of the evening (the last hour or so) I had no qualms moving about the seminary on my own, while I still felt everything I did before, the sense of fear and maliciousness just slid off me. So I did also wander for a while on my own, because it’s one thing to feel that way, it’s another thing to make sure that the feeling remains when put to the test.