These posts are an account of my own personal experiences with spirituality and the paranormal in chronological order, to the best of my memory. I will do my best to post new entries on Thursdays.
I was very little at the time. I'm not sure exactly how old I was. I was in bed and my mother was about to turn out the light overhead as she left my room. I asked her to leave the light on because I was afraid the ghosts were going to get me. I had convinced myself they wouldn't come if the light remained on. She became angry at me and yelled how it was going to make her electricity bill high. She did not turn the light off though when she left my room.
As a very young child, my mother would train me to develop my psychic gifts. I remember walking home from the store with my mother and younger brother one time. I was trying to read minds. I asked my younger brother to picture his favourite flower in his mind. I concentrated and saw a pansy.
I said, "It's a pansy."
He asked my mum what a pansy was and she told him it was a small purple and yellow flower.
"That's right!", he told me.
I then asked my mother to do it and I saw a rose. I told her and she confirmed that I was correct. Years later, my mother would tell me that when I was young I went around the house talking about Patty Hearst for some time. She said she had no idea what I was talking about until it came on the news one day. I don't remember this. She stopped working on my psychic gifts and told me to stop talking about it when she got together with my step-father. She said he wouldn't like it. I learned to hide it.
When I was a kid, my mother would play the radio in the mornings while we ate breakfast and got ready for school. Every week day morning, the radio station would have a phone-in contest for children. The kids had to call in and guess the number. If they got it right they won a prize. I only remember them allowing one child to try each morning.
One morning when they made the announcement for the kids to call in for the contest, I somehow knew it was number 4 that day and if I called in I would win! I ran to the phone on the wall in the kitchen and asked my mother if I could call the radio station because I knew the number was going to be 4 that day! She refused to let me.
Disappointed, I sat down at the table to eat my breakfast along with my brothers. The contest came on a few minutes later and the D.J. asked the kid that called in for the number. He guessed wrong. It had been 4!! I had been right. I would have won the prize if I had gotten through. That is, if I had been allowed to call at all. That was the only time I got the number. I suppose it was fruitless to bother again, so I never tried.
However, that was when I decided that 4 was my lucky number, despite not actually getting the prize.
We were driving in the car at night. My step-father was driving, with my mother in the passenger seat. I sat directly behind her, with my brother and one of my step-brothers beside me in the back seat. I don't remember where we were going or if we were returning home. I only know that I was young and it was night time.
As we drove I was leaning on the door, looking out the window. This was a time before seatbelts were mandatory. I notice a light high up in the sky that seemed to be following us. At first I thought it was a star, but the other stars weren't moving like it was. Then I had the thought that it must be an airplane. As soon as I thought that, the light turned at a sharp angle. Being a young child I did not know the proper term for that turn. Now, I realize it was a 90 degree angle or right angle. Even though I was that young, I wasn't sure an airplane could turn at such a sharp angle, so I asked my parents.
"Can an airplane make a turn like a car? If the car was driving down Mohawk road and then turned onto West 5th street?" I was asking if it could turn the corner like a car can on any street corner.
"No.", My step-father responded and then went on to explain the whole thing fully, but I stopped listening to him. I just needed to know yes or no.
I leaned back to look out the window again, thinking to myself "They are just letting me know they are there.", with the knowledge that 'they' were aliens. However, I could not see that moving UFO anymore.
As a family, we drove to the Chedoke Ski Hills to go tobogganing. There was a small hill that us smaller kids could use for just such a purpose. There were many families there. My younger step-brother sat in the front of our shiny, red toboggan and I sat behind him, my legs on either side of him. Down we went, farther than ever before and approached a smaller hill covered in trees.
I clearly heard a voice tell me 'If your brother jumps off the toboggan you will crash into the trees and both end up in the hospital. Do not allow him to jump off! You will not hit the trees if you just stay on the toboggan!" I looked ahead and could see our way was clear, as the voice had said.
Sure enough, my little step-brother tried to jump off. I held him on, forcing him to stay put. I could hear the yelling and gasping of the people on the hill where we had come from. We cleared the trees with no problem! When we came to a stop and got off, he was so mad at me he yelled at me, but I didn't care, we were safe. As we went back up the hill where the parents of all the kids were, he yelled at our parents that I kept him on the toboggan. When confronted by my parents, I simply stated that I could see our way was clear and we would be okay. There was no way I was going to tell them a voice told me what to do. Afterall, my mother forebade me from revealing my psychic gifts anymore. Luckily, I did not get into any trouble.
We moved into a home on Fisher Cresent. I did not like the basement at all, it was haunted. There was a workshop down there, and that seemed to me to be the source of the haunting. There was a laundry room, a washroom with a shower, a family room where the television was and a large recreation room with a pool table. I was scared to go down into the basement by myself. If I was asked to get something out of the basement I did it as quickly as possible. It wasn't so bad watching television as that helped to distract me enough to forget about the ghosts.
My parents decided to build a bedroom in the corner of the basement where the family room and recreation room met. They put in a walk-in closet as part of the room. They did this so my two younger brothers could have their own bedrooms, rather than sharing one. They decided I was to get the basement bedroom. I pretended to be excited about it, as we had an abusive, dysfunctional family and there was no way we could have our own opinions or go against what our parents had decided. So into the basement I went.
Right away there were issues being down there alone at night. So many nights, I would wake up in the middle of the night because I could hear someone playing pool. I could hear the billiard balls smacking into each other and bouncing off the sides or being sunk. At first I opened my eyes to see if the light was on in the recreation room. If it was on, it would shine through my door, which I kept closed, but there was never a light on in there when this happened. Eventually, I just kept my eyes closed and pulled the sheets over my head.
One night, I saw red eyes staring at me from one of the windows in my doll house. They glowed red. Again, I hid under my blankets. This was before the days of digital clock radios, so there was no reflection of any red light happening. I never said a thing about the hauntings to anyone at the time, because my mother had forbidden me to talk about my abilities. I suffered alone, in silence.
It was Easter time and I was sent to Sunday school, although my parents did not attend church. I think they just wanted time alone without us kids, so we had to go to Sunday school every week, unless we were ill. Anyway, on this particular day the teacher was telling us about how Christ rose from the dead. She asked what we thought he was teaching us.
I raised my hand and she let me answer. "He was showing us that we will live again! That life doesn't end with our death!", I exclaimed.
She was horrified. "NO! That is not correct! Be quiet!", she angrily tried to put me in my place.
I knew better. I knew I was correct. I knew we would live again and in my mind that is exactly what Christ was trying to show us and teach us. I didn't know it was called re-incarnation at that age, but I was born with the knowledge that we would be reborn. Back then, I didn't know how I knew, I just knew.
One day I was walking home from somewhere, I don't remember where, but I saw my two younger brothers sitting on the edge of the sidewalk pigging out on candy. There were a couple of streets away from the street we lived on. I walked over to them and asked where they got the candy from. They said they got it from the store. I found out they stole it! I told them I was going to tell on them! They begged me not to tell and bribed me with candy. I agreed to their terms. They gave me some candy every time they stole, to keep me from telling.
Eventually, they talked me into stealing my own. I was so sure I was going to get caught. On our regular allowance day, we headed up to the Pharmacy on Sanitorium, a few blocks from where we lived. I took a small 15 cent chocolate bar and put it in my pocket. No one saw. I went up to the counter and spent my allowance of 25 cents as I normally do. I walked out of the store so happy that I had got away with it. I did not get caught stealing!
WHAM!! I got a big kick in the stomach! I had almost made it out of the parking lot, when I got hit with this horrible feeling in my gut. It was my own consciousness causing this. No one kicked me. In that moment, with that feeling, I realized how stupid I was. I was going to go to hell for stealing a 15 cent chocolate bar! Why did I do it?
A few weeks later, my mother found out and dragged the three of us to the Pharmacy to talk to the owner. As the four of us walked to the Pharmacy, she said he would get the police and we would be arrested! I lied and said I didn't steal any. She didn't care and didn't believe me. When we got to the store, my mother talked to the owner, who said it was alright because his insurance covered it. My mother was furious he didn't do anything! We all got in major trouble when we got back home though.
I was hanging out with my neighbour, Margaret and a couple of boys from school and somehow we got talking about psychic stuff. Maybe it was from something on t.v., like the Amazing Kreskin or something. Anyway, I mentioned that I used to be able to see images from other people's minds. That as a little kid my mother had helped me develop this. The two boys were intrigued and challenged me to read their minds.
They went off a distance and discussed what they would both concentrate on. Once they had agreed on an object, they both came back and it began. I closed my eyes and concentrated. It's a person I said. They agreed. A guy with straight, long brown hair. Again that was correct.
Suddenly, in my mind I saw the image of a naked woman's body! "Who is thinking of a naked woman?", I asked.
"Holy shit!", Peter exclaimed as he spun around on the spot.
"Get serious!", Guiliano sternly told him, "Concentrate!"
We went back to the task at hand. "His hair is about shoulder length and he has a big nose!", I said. The nose was enormous in size, so I could not figure out who it was.
"I don't know who it is.", I responded, defeated.
"It's Nigel.", they declared.
Nigel was a boy in our class, and everything I described was correct, however to me his nose was long, but not big as the image that had come through. That is when I realized that they did not see or imagine Nigel the way I did.
When I was in grade 7, the teacher, Mrs. Campbell, gave us all a test to do. As I began the test, I realized I had already written it. I actually went up to Mrs. Campbell, who was sitting in the corner at her desk, and asked her why were writing this test again? She looked at me like I was crazy and told me not to be ridiculus and to go back to my seat and do it. I found it very odd that we would write the same test twice.
Then not long afterwards, I was given a geography test by Mr. Jarrid and again I remembered having already written this test. I did not say anything, but went ahead and did it. I did not want to get the same reaction or similar reaction that I had gotten from Mrs. Campbell. Since in both instances, none of my classmates remember doing the test before, I figured out I must have dreamed doing the test ahead of time.
One sunny, warm summer day, there was a gang of my friends and I on our bicycles. We were trying to figure out where to go and what to do, when someone came up with the idea of going to Buchanan Park. (That was the park on the same property as the school I had attended before moving to the haunted house.) Everyone wanted to go, but I couldn't. My step-father had come up with the rule that I could ride my bike anywhere but I was not allowed to go across any roads that had traffic lights. This meant I could ride my bike for hours towards the west, but wasn't allowed to go across the street on the next block to the east. Buchanan Park was east and I would have to go across the traffic lights on the corner.
My friends tried to convince me to go anyway telling me that I wouldn't get caught. I knew better though. I always got caught, so I couldn't go. They all rode off, leaving me there on the side of the road.
Sure enough as soon as they were riding across the road through the intersection, my step-father turned at the same intersection towards me.
He pulled over and rolled the window down asking me why I wasn't going with my friends. I reminded him of his rule that I was not allowed to go across that road with the traffic lights.
"Oh," he said, "that's right. That's good."
I realized, he had forgotten all about that rule he had given me, so I probably could have gotten away with going with my friends anyway. However, I was far better off not taking the chance.
It was around this time, that one of the boys from school asked me out on a date. I think his name was Ian. He wanted to take me to the movies. I was not interested in dating him, so I told him no. My friend, Erma told me to tell him I changed my mind and to go with him. I told her I wasn't interested in dating him. She said that didn't matter, but to go because he would pay for the movie and buy me candy and drinks!
I was horrified by that idea. I had no intention of taking advantage of him and using him for what he could buy me. I was shocked she would think like that. I did not want to lead him on to think that I liked him the same way he liked me, just so he would buy me things. It was just wrong to do that.
We were moving again. We moved around a lot. As we were packing and cleaning the house to get ready to move, my step father and my older step brother started to destroy the pool table. I asked why they were doing that and my step father said it was because the new people moving in didn't want it. I didn't know why we weren't bringing it with us. The new house certainly had room for it. I wonder from time to time if he heard the noise of the billiard balls banging around and into each other in the middle of the night like I had. I never asked.
So, it was the summer before I started high school and we moved to be closer to the high school. My brothers ended up having to take a bus to our old school, but I could walk to my new school. I liked that house, even though it was haunted. They seemed to be mischievous spirits rather than nasty ones. They were quiet but, would take things. I would go to get something and it wasn't where it should have been. I would ask for it back or tell them to put it back and sure enough they would, right where I had expected to find it and had looked for it previously. I got used that.
It was around this time, that we got a new minister at our church. He had a thing for Satanists. He went on and on about them and how evil they were and that we needed to protect ourselves from them. I had never met a Satanist. I had no idea what they even were, apart from worshipping the devil, but what was so evil about them?
It is my personality or how my mind works, but I need to know. I need to find answers. So, when I saw the Satanic Bible on sale at the bookstore, I bought a copy. "Know thy enemy" sort of idea. I never had any interest in becoming a satanist. I just wanted to know who they were and what they did. I read the book and was very under-impressed. Basically, they were incredibly selfish people who use and abuse others for their own gain. Well, at least now I knew.
It was my teen years and I wanted to absorb information and find answers to life's questions, so I began to search and explore in earnest. I bought a tarot deck, got books on astrology and a kit for doing birth charts. I got a book on necromancy, another book that left me unimpressed. I got books on other occult stuff. I bought a ouija board. I did research in the library on these topics, especially re-incarnation, which I still completely believed but needed to have proof.
My step father was not happy about me having a ouija board. I tended to play with it when he wasn't home. He worked shifts so I got to play around with it when he was on afternoon shift. I worried my parents would discover my satanic bible and I would get in trouble, but they never knew. I think I threw it in the garbage not long after buying it, as it was a useless book to have.
In my teens, I was continually searching for answers and trying to make sense of life. I just couldn't take things at face value. There had to be more going on then what appeared on the surface. I really began questioning the existence of 'God'. It just didn't make sense to me. It wasn't logical that one being controlled everything, created everything. I had to look deeper and hopefully find the answer some day.
I had no problem with Christ. I like Christ. I continued going to church for a few years. I joined the church youth group. I was scared to not believe in 'God" and be punished for it or what if I was wrong and 'God' was real? I eventually stopped going to church. Some of what the church taught just went against how I felt or what I believed so, it didn't seem right to continue to attend especially when I was not 100% sure it was real.
So many of the people seemed so hypocritical. They would go to church for an hour or two on a Sunday, but didn't follow Christ's advice the rest of the week. It seemed pathetic to me. Were they hoping the time spent on a Sunday morning listening to someone preach, would forgive them for all the sins they committed during the week? Like a 'get out of jail free card' for their bad behaviour? I just didn't get it.
I knew I would need to keep searching, keep looking for the answers as to why we are alive, what life is all about, and what is really going on. No one around seemed interested, at least they didn't talk to me about it if they did. Perhaps, part of the reason why I had to search was because of the strange things that happened to me in my teen years.