Ghost of the Week Club

Posted on December 7, 2014 by jonimayhan

Sometimes I feel as though somebody enrolled me into the Ghost of the Week Club.

I am what they call a Beacon. For whatever reason, ghosts are drawn to me like a moth to a bug light. Many of them follow me home, hoping for a number of things. Some just want the human companionship, while others are hoping for help. Still others just want to draw my energy, like they do with many of the living.

As a sensitive, I always know when a ghost is present. I was blessed/cursed with an ability called Clairaudience. I hear them. They make a sound that is similar to ear ringing. They swoop around the room and the sound goes in and out, growing fainter as they move away from me and closer as they approach me. If there are several ghosts in the room, I can hear their unique tones move in and out of one another. At times, my room feels like it’s in the middle of spiritual warfare.

Three weeks ago, I picked up one of the worst entities I’ve ever experienced at an investigation. I knew there were several dark entities present the moment I stepped onto the property. I should have turned around and walked away, but I didn’t want to ruin everyone else’s evening since I was the driver. We drove nearly two hours for a fundraising ghost event and everyone was excited to be there. For many of them, it was their first investigation. I put my energies behind keeping them protected.

When we first arrived, I gathered my group in a circle and said a prayer to Saint Michael the Arch Angel, asking for protection. We were respectful and left areas when we received a response of “Go away!” on the Spirit Box. One ghost in particular seemed to be following me throughout the evening. I could feel his distinct energy and hear a tone that was deeper in pitch that helped me identify him. We called him “The Bad Guy in the Basement.” He was grumpy and angry, answering our questions with roars, while getting so close to us we could feel the hairs rising on the backs of our necks. As it turns out, it wasn’t the Bad Guy in the Basement I should have been worried about. It was the Ancient One down the lane.

I didn’t encounter him until right before I left. I walked outside with another group to conduct a quick EVP session near an old lane. Jeff, the caretaker of the property and an old friend, told us there were several powerful entities lingering on the property. He felt they were ancient, possibly not even human. I never even felt it drift close to us.

Some of the older, more advanced entities can mask their appearance, making them not only invisible, but undetectable. It wasn’t until I got home later that I realized something had come home with me.

As I slipped into bed, weary from a long night and an equally long drive, I felt him come near. He didn’t make a sound like the others do. Instead, I felt a deep vibration rumble through me. I felt as though I were lying on a metal grate with a train roaring past me overhead. It was so strong, it made the bed rattle with the vibration. My cats took one look at me and fled the bedroom with pinned ears and arched backs. As the night progressed, I began feeling electric fingers grasp onto my head, pushing and pushing as though my head would explode. In my mind, I got a picture of a watermelon exploding and knew this was what he was trying to do to me, as well.

I felt the same dismay I always feel when this happens. Why me? I am a experienced student of paranormal protection. I’ve even written a book about it. I had protective stones in my pocket, a Saint Benedict’s medal around my neck, and had built a shield of energy around me that felt strong and sturdy. Still, he got through my defenses.

The last time I experienced one this strong was when I came in contact with the Soul Collector. Not having any viable resources at the time, I had to endure his wraith for several months before someone could pull him off of me before he could claim me as one of his own. This time things were different. I had Michael.

Michael Robishaw is a Shaman from Alexandria, Virginia. I met him at an investigation at the Haunted Victorian Mansion in Gardner, Massachusetts, several years ago and maintained a friendship. I didn’t realize he had amazing abilities until later when something followed me home and he offered to help me. He said he would send in his guides to pull the entity out of my space and he did.

The results were so outstanding, I wanted to praise his abilities, but he was hesitant to allow the information to become public knowledge. People would talk. They would roll their eyes, thinking he was nothing more than a snake oil salesman, pretending to have magical powers. Reluctantly, I kept the information to myself, but I still called on him when I needed him.

After spending an entire night riveted to my bed, afraid to even close my eyes, I contacted him the next morning. He promised to send his guides in that evening at 11pm. As the time grew near, I sat in my bed reading, hoping to experience the extermination of this entity. I wasn’t disappointed. At 11pm on the mark, I heard a high-pitched tone sweep into the room. Soon, it was joined by others. They swirled around my room like a chorus of angels, their tones so pure in pitch, they sounded like the ringing of bells, but the vibration of my bed continued.

Several hours later, I heard another tone come in. It was so loud, I nearly had to cover my ears. It almost sounded like lasers zapping through my room. The high-pitched sounds retreated to the edges of the room as though they were watching something so spectacular, they wanted a front row seat. The laser sounds continued for nearly an hour before the room grew silent and the bed stopped vibrating.

Gone was the feeling of someone lumbering over me, sending angry energy though every cell in my body. The room was silent. As a Clairaudient, the sound of silence is amazing. It meant there weren’t any ghosts in my room.

I followed up the next morning by lining my doorways and windowsills with sea salt and spraying Holy Water onto every wall and window. When Michael contacted me later in the day to deliver the news, I wasn’t surprised. He told me it was an Ancient One. He said it was so strong his guides couldn’t budge it so he called in Arch Angels Michael and Raphael to assist. They bound and banished it, sending it to a place where it could never bother another human soul.

As can be expected, I was curious about this. I told Michael that at times, I could feel electric fingers digging into my head as if it was trying to get inside of me or possibly make my head explode. Michael confirmed this.”He was trying to get inside of you. He had been weakened and was trying to draw enough energy from you to take you over. It’s a good thing you contacted me when you did,” he said.

I felt as though I had dodged a bullet. I was so thankful that Michael had been there to help me. After going through what I did with the Soul Collector, I wasn’t keen on experiencing another more powerful entity. While it might have made a great book, I wasn’t sure I could have survived this one.

I left shortly afterwards for a trip to Indiana. I had a nice visit with my friends and family over Thanksgiving, but was eager to get back home to get back to my life and my writing. I always break the sixteen-hour drive into two days, since I’m the only one driving. By the eighth hour of my first day’s drive, I was getting tired. My back was hurting from the confinement of the seat and my eyes were growing road weary. I had just started looking for a hotel to stop at when I felt something swoop into the car.

Great. I tried to gather my energy to push it away. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn’t. Stronger mediums are able to do this without batting an eye, but I can’t always get a good grasp on it, especially at the end of an eight-hour drive. By the time I finally found a hotel, I was beyond beat. I logged onto Facebook and saw I had a message from Michael. “You picked up a hitchhiker along your way,” he said. “But, I’ll have my guides pull it off of you later.”

At 11pm, I heard the high-pitch sound swoop into my room, pushing away the deeper rumble of the unknown entity. The spiritual battle continued long into the night and into the morning. By 3am, my room was quiet again. While Michael’s guides were able to handle this one without the aid of Arch Angels, they had a difficult time. Negotiations had been dismal. The entity refused to leave me. I saw him in my mind as a young man with sandy brown hair and a cocky sneer on his face. Wanting to confirm my visions, I asked Michael what he looked like and he confirmed it, down to the smirky sneer on his face. The battle wasn’t easy and the entity wouldn’t move on, so his guides had to bind and banish another one for me, sending him to a place where he couldn’t cause more havoc.

I’ve always wondered what the reason for my gift/curse was. Surely there was a deeper meaning for it or at least a purpose. After working with Michael over the years, I’ve began to wonder if this is it. Am I the beacon who calls them in so that Michael can attend to them? It seems like a pretty small mission, compared to all the meandering ghosts out there in the world. It will take us an eternity to move through all of them. I tucked the thought away in my mind, not having any clear answers, as usual.

I only had a few days of respite before the next ghost found me. Michael cautioned me to stop ghost hunting for a while and work on clearing my aura, so I did. I turned down several investigations in favor of sitting at home with my cats, watching TV and writing. I only left the house to shop for groceries and to teach my weekly Paranormal 101 class. I became aware of Ghost #3 as I was getting ready to retire for bed.

This one was different. I felt the energy immediately. I could hear an actual tone with her, identifying her as a female. Since the tone wasn’t pure and bell-like, it also identified her as an Earth-bound soul, someone who wanted help. I tried to talk to her, counselling her like I sometimes do to find the white light and cross over, but my words fell on deaf ears. She hovered over my bed all night, keeping me awake with her frantic energy.

Michael sent his guides in the next night and she was gone by 1am. When I contacted him the next morning, he told me she was a lost soul. She was frightened and confused. He couldn’t get much information from her, but he was able to cross her over into the light, bringing her where she needed, and wanted, to be.

For months now, Michael has been my secret weapon. I’ve wanted to talk about his amazing gift and how profoundly he has helped me, but he’s been hesitant to let the news get out. I was thrilled when he finally gave me permission.

In February of next year, I plan to travel down to Alexandria, Virginia. We are going to write a book together about his amazing experiences as a Shaman. If nothing else, I am excited to learn more about the things he’s seen. I’m also hoping he can help me figure out how to help myself.

In the meantime, I’m hoping to be unenrolled from the Ghost of the Week Club. But, if another ghost shows up, I am beyond relieved to know I have a savior to rescue me one more time.

Joni Mayhan

Joni Mayhan is a paranormal investigator, as well as a free-lance writer. Please check out her paranormal thrillers on Amazon.com and BarnesandNobles.com. For more information about the author, please see her website: Jonimayhan.com

Are Spirit Boards Dangerous?

Posted on May 3, 2014 by jonimayhan

Judy wasn’t happy when her friend brought a Ouija Board to her slumber party, but she didn’t want to be a spoiled sport. All the other girls were excited, gathering around the board, waiting for their turn to talk to the dead. At first, they began getting interesting responses to their questions, but after a while, the responses turned darker. Instead of telling them the names of their next boyfriends, it began answering all the questions with terrifying words like: kill, murder, and maim. Judy insisted they put the board away, but the event was far from over. Days later, Judy began hearing footsteps in the empty house and loud thumps on the walls. Had they conjured an evil entity through the board?

Is it a board game or a divining tool for the devil?

As I set out to write this blog, I quickly learned that there are few grey areas when it comes to people’s opinions on Ouija Boards. They either love them or they hate them. Messages began pouring in the minute I posted a question on Facebook about them.

So, what’s the fuss all about?

I probably don’t need to describe an Ouija Board to anyone. We’ve all seen them in horror flicks and paranormal reality shows. For those who have been living under a rock for the past hundred years or so, a spirit board is a game board that is marked with the letters of the alphabet, the numbers zero through nine, the words “yes” and “no”, and typically the words “hello” and “goodbye”. Users rest their fingers on a triangle or heart-shaped game piece, often called a planchette, while an unseen entity supposedly moves the indicator to spell out a message. Many people consider spirit boards to be a form of automatic writing, a practice that allows ghosts to convey messages by spelling out words on paper. They gained popularity in the late 1800’s as the boards became easily obtainable and can be currently be found in most department stores or online shopping sites, sitting side-by-side with family favorites like Candyland and Monopoly.

For many people, the question is simple. Why would an Ouija Board be any different than any other form of paranormal equipment? The answer is a bit more complex.

When we conduct paranormal investigations, we use many different pieces of equipment to elicit responses from the spirit world. Tools of the trade vary. A popular device is the Ovilus, an electronic device that is pre-programmed with several thousand words the spirit world can utilize to sound out messages. Others use Spirit Boxes, which use a modified radio that scans quickly through the stations to capture spirit voices. K2, EMF meters, flashlights, and digital audio recorders are also frequently used as communication devices. The one thing that separates these devices from a spirit board is the conduit. While the other equipment allows the entities to communicate through the device itself, a spirit board requires a host to convey the messages. For me, that makes all the difference.

In my book Ghostly Defenses: A Sensitive’s Guide for Protection, I don’t recommend investigators to invite a ghost to touch them or use their energy. Personal contact can lead to a multitude of unexpected complications including a paranormal hangover, where an investigator is drained of energy, as well as spirit attachment, where the entity actually follows you home from the investigation. Maintaining a safe distance is often essential in keeping yourself protected. It only takes one wrong move to turn your life into a living hell. I say this from personal experience. I wrote the book The Soul Collector after I ran into a very nasty negative entity that brought me to the brink of disaster.

With that said, it won’t surprise anyone that I have mixed feelings about spirit boards, especially when they are used by inexperienced people. In some cases, it could be the equivalent of handing a loaded gun to a person who has never seen a gun before. The results could be fairly predictable.

A friend who wishes to remain anonymous shared the following story with me. They lived in a haunted house and frequently used an Ouija Board to communicate with the resident ghosts, but the sessions eventually grew precarious. While the house had always been active, it intensified greatly after they began using the board. The ghost began to focus on the twenty-year-old daughter. It knew things about her personal life that she hadn’t shared with her family and began spelling them out with glee. The activity soon grew physical as the entity began taking control of her body. Something began moving her arms, making them tremble and point in a specific direction. At times, her arms would twitch and shake beyond control, something her father could feel by touching her. The family quickly stopped using the spirit board. While the activity in the house continued, the entity ceased the physical attacks.

Others have different takes on the boards.

Frank had also had a life altering experience using a Ouija Board. While his sister and her friends used the board at a slumber party in the family’s basement, he sat at the edge of the room, watching them. He had a crush on one of his sister’s friends, but at fifteen-years-old, he was too shy to do anything about it. One of the girls asked the board if it had something it wanted to tell them. It promptly spelled out “Frankie loves Bonnie.” Frank was mortified and ran upstairs in embarrassment, but the message served its purpose. Frank and Bonnie are now married with two children, having been together for twenty-one years.

Is this really possible? Can a piece of cardboard and a game piece really conjure up the dead?

Many skeptics believe that the spirit board responses are due to ideomotor responses, where users are unknowingly moving the planchette. In his book Pseudoscience and the Paranormal, neurology professor, Terence Hines, states the following:

“The planchette is guided by unconscious muscular exertions like those responsible for table movement. Nonetheless, in both cases, the illusion that the object (table or planchette) is moving under its own control is often extremely powerful and sufficient to convince many people that spirits are truly at work… The unconscious muscle movements responsible for the moving tables and Ouija board phenomena seen at séances are examples of a class of phenomena due to what psychologists call a dissociative state. A dissociative state is one in which consciousness is somehow divided or cut off from some aspects of the individual’s normal cognitive, motor, or sensory functions.”

Heidi’s story conflicts with this theory. While in junior high school, she used one with a friend. Nothing happened in the beginning, but soon the experience changed. An entity came through, telling them he was the father of a classmate who had died. They began asking him questions to validate the response, and he provided them with accurate information. They asked him the name of his boat, and he answered with the name “Princess.” Heidi’s friend thought the information was incorrect. She remembered the name to be “Canasta.” They ceased communication at that point, afraid that another entity was pretending to be the friend’s dead father. Later that summer, when Heidi went to the camp where the boat was docked, she happened to see his boat and was shocked at what she saw. The name on the back of the boat was “Princess,” like the spirit board told them.

The stories go on and on. I was shocked at how many people contacted me.

Psychic medium, Memie Watson contacted me after reading my post on Facebook, providing me with the following information.

“As a child my mother worked at Parker Brothers in Salem, Massachusetts, where they made Ouija boards. They are not the traditional ones from the Egyptian times. We got one as a gift and played with it all the time. We called in spirits and asked them questions. As children, we are more susceptible to having an open mind to spirits.

We never have had anything bad happen to us at all. To this day, I still have the original one my mother gave us hanging up on the kitchen wall.

Spirit boards and Ouija boards are the same as Table Tipping as they all put you in direct communication with spirits; they are a form of divination as well as the pendulum and dowsing rods etc. Also, psychic mediums contact the spirit, so we must also be protected and cleansed. We always cleanse and consecrate any magickal tool, including ourselves, prior to spirit contact. Upon finishing, we cleanse ourselves as well, as we don’t want Sprits hanging around.

Yes, these tools are part of the Occult. While the word has a bad connotation to some, it really only means the unknown or something hidden.

They do work and will not bring any ill harm to you unless you believe that they will.

What I recommend to others starting out is to respect the board and the spirits and no harm shall come. Never mock them and laugh at them. They are not tools of the devil, as in our belief system there is no such thing as the devil, as it is purely a Christian belief.

So any form of communication with the other world is knowledge into the occult, the spirit realm,” she told me.

Others have much stronger opinions of Ouija Boards, suggesting they created portals for darker entities to utilize.

Tara from Tara Haunted Tours in Savannah, Georgia, recommends caution when dealing with the boards. While she has witnessed professionals utilizing the board without issue, she’s seen far more people get into trouble with them. She believes that when inexperienced people use Ouija Boards, hoping to sense a ghost or conjure their departed loved ones, other darker entities can come through instead, pretending to be the loved one. “They go in, extremely unprotected, thinking they are talking to dead ‘grandma’. Evil poses in many forms. Leave the board alone!” she recommends.

My friend, Michael Cram, shares a similar belief. Michael’s history in the paranormal started in childhood. His mother was an Irish witch, someone who often helped others with their problems. A talented medium himself, Michael spent over thirty years in the field investigating claims of hauntings. He also works with the Catholic Church, helping them investigate reports of demonic activity prior to exorcisms.

After the owners of the Haunted Victorian Mansion found a handmade Ouija Board in their house following a paranormal investigation, the activity in the house became far more prevalent. They asked Michael to come in for a house cleansing and he quickly identified the entity as something that was brought into the house.

“You don’t want to mess with those,” he told Edwin, pointing towards the Ouija Board. “If the wrong person is using it, they could open up more portals, and invite things that you don’t want here. It’s like leaving your front door wide open and allowing anyone to come in.”

He went on to tell Edwin that the types of entities who communicate through Ouija boards were from a lower astral plane, the type you don’t want to welcome into your home. Once you ask for a physical confirmation, such as a knock on the wall or a flicker of a candle, you are essentially opening a portal, allowing them in. Once they come through, they don’t always leave. Michael completed his cleansing, but the entity would prove difficult to remove.

Personally, I’ve avoided Ouija Boards, fearing I would create a situation I couldn’t control afterwards. Being a sensitive, I already contend with ghosts following me home from investigations and haunted establishments. The last thing I needed was to create a doorway inside my own house for them to come and go as they wished. I decided that a call to Barbara Williams was in order.

Barbara Williams is a very talented psychic medium from Casco, Maine. After meeting her at an investigation at Parsonsfield Seminary, another very haunted location, I began reaching out to her to learn more about the paranormal world. She’s since become my mentor, my go-to person for paranormal questions.

She feels that a spirit board is a tool, no different from a camera, a pendulum, or an Ovilus. An experienced user will know how to properly open and close a session, like they would do for any paranormal investigation, but since Ouija Boards are sold as toys, they often end up in the wrong hands.

“Most people’s first experiences with spirit boards come when they are adolescents. As you know, adolescents are usually very volatile emotionally. They have very strong kinetic energy and are most likely to create poltergeist activity,” she said. She went on to explaining the importance of conducting the session correctly.

She feels that safeguards must be put into place. The spirit board must first be cleansed of any lingering energy. If someone else has used it, it could still hold that energy, good or bad. While Barbara doesn’t use spirit boards, she feels that opening and closing a session is vitally important. She recommends beginning every paranormal investigation with a prayer and a blessing, asking for protection from the guides and guardians who protect the users. They should always make the intent very clear, instructing only spirits from the light to come through and preventing dark energy from emerging.

Closing the session is just as important as beginning one. After the session ends, whether it is for an EVP session or a spirit board session, the connection must be closed. “Otherwise, it’s like living in the woods in a cabin. If you walk away and leave the door open, you’re going to end up with a lot of bugs,” she said. “If you open a vortex, you must close it as well,” she added.

As for the girl named Judy in the beginning of the article — her name was really Joni.

My advice to you about spirit boards is to be cautious. Will I use one in the future? It’s highly doubtful, but I am curious by nature. If the right situation presented itself, under the best possible circumstances, I might be tempted.

Certainly, it is far more than a board game, but is it a divining tool of the devil? I’ll let you make that decision.

The Soul Collector – The true story of one paranormal investigator’s worst nightmare

http://www.amazon.com/The-Soul-Collector-ebook/dp/B00EIHG90Q/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1381464557&sr=1-1&keywords=joni+mayhan

Ghostly Defenses: A Sensitive’s Guide for Protection

Being a sensitive isn’t always easy. While we can sense that ghosts and spirits are present, we aren’t always prepared to handle them. This guide is a starting point for sensitives, giving them direction on how to harness their abilities, while staying protected from negative energy.

This guide discusses the various methods for protection from dark energy, including prayers, medallions, and gemstones, as well as step-by-step directions for protection before, during and after paranormal investigations.

http://www.amazon.com/Ghostly-Defenses-Joni-Mayhan-ebook/dp/B00IYOB40E/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1399115123&sr=1-2

Angels of Ember trilogy – After a devastating virus nearly wipes the world clean of people, 16 year-old Ember Pain grows tired of running and hiding from the bad men who hunt her and her younger sister, Elizabeth. Fighting back becomes a necessity, even if it threatens her very existence.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=angels+of+ember+trilogy&rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Aangels+of+ember+trilogy

Lightning Strikes

Ember Rain

Angel Storm

Preview of Ghostly Defenses

Posted on February 25, 2014 by jonimayhan

Being a Sensitive

I was born with a gift that scared me. I knew when ghosts were nearby.

It started when I was six years old. I would lay in my bed after my mother had tucked me in, allowing my eyes to adjust to the darkness. I looked around my room, watching the shadows move at the corners of my room. At first, it didn’t scare me because I didn’t know what I was looking at. It was just something I had always seen. It was normal.

Then, I began hearing a ringing sound that accompanied the moving shadows. The sound swooped in, as if carried on the wind. It swirled around the room, coming closer and closer, until it zoomed away from me again. I wouldn’t understand what it was until I was seven.

That was when I saw my first ghost

It approached my bed, not stopping until it was mere inches away from me. I was so scared, I couldn’t even scream. All I could do was look up at it with terror, feeling the anger radiate from it like something I could see and touch. After a few minutes, I finally found my voice and screamed for my mother, chasing it away.

When I told my parents about what I was seeing and experiencing, they told me it was just my imagination. “There is no such thing as ghosts,” they said.

I experience ghostly activity throughout my life, never fully trusting what I was sensing was true. Was I really feeling ghosts? I didn’t tell anyone for fear they’d think I was crazy. I kept the information to myself until I met like-minded people, people who were sensitives like me.

I happened upon them in the usual way. I was drawn to the field that had held me captive for forty years. I joined a ghost-hunting group. Through them, I met friends who were also able to sense and feel ghosts and I began to learn more about my abilities.

One thing I didn’t count on, though, was the fact that nothing would remain the same. Once I tuned in to this ability, it grew and developed, much like a well-exercised muscle.

Opening that doorway changed everything in my life. I no longer suspected that ghosts and spirits were nearby, I knew it as clearly as I knew the sky was blue. The more I trusted my gift, the better it became, making me more desirable to the spirit world. They began following me home from restaurants, stores, and even from the homes of friends. I had to get a hold of this gift before it got a hold of me. Unfortunately, I walked into a very bad situation I wasn’t prepared for.

I wasn’t protected.

I was like a lamb, leading myself into a den filled with lions. I didn’t understand the impact my ability had in the spirit world, and how vulnerable it made me toward darker energy.

I wrote this guide to help those like me. When I first started out, I had no idea where to turn to. Please consider this a starting place to help you get to where you want to be.

Sometimes we all need a little push in the right direction.

Thank you for reading this preview of my new paranormal guide, Ghostly Defenses. This book can be found on Amazon.com by following the link below.

http://www.amazon.com/Ghostly-Defenses-Joni-Mayhan-ebook/dp/B00IMUUDZC/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1393338740&sr=1-3&keywords=joni+mayhan

Joni Mayhan

The Soul Collector – The true story of one paranormal investigator’s worst nightmare

http://www.amazon.com/The-Soul-Collector-ebook/dp/B00EIHG90Q/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1381464557&sr=1-1&keywords=joni+mayhan

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=angels+of+ember+trilogy&rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Aangels+of+ember+trilogy

Lightning Strikes

Ember Rain

Angel Storm

Paranormal Hitchhikers

Aside

Something followed me home again.

It happens quite a bit, more often than I admit. This one came from the house that I’m currently writing about, the Haunted Victorian Mansion.

I went there for a photo shoot on Monday and encountered a very strong male energy in the Red Room. He had a very distinctive tone and when I came into his space, he made my body feel as though it were vibrating from the inside out. It’s a very strange sensation. It’s almost like being nervous, without the emotion to go along with it. It’s also a bit unnerving.

Strong ones do this to me for some reason. With normal ghosts, I will hear a tone, similar to an ear-ringing sound. It’s taken me years to figure it out, with the help of my mentor, Barbara Williams. A ghost tone is lower in register and isn’t pure and ringing. It almost sounds like that static white-noise that television sets used to make before the rise of cable. A ghost is a human who has died, but didn’t cross over into the white light. Some are trapped, but most are here of their own free will. They feel as though they have something they need to do before they cross on. When they make my body vibrate, they are insistent that I listen to them.

A spirit is a pure sound, like the sound a wine glass makes when you tap it with a fork, except the sound just continues on and on. It can be maddening at times, but I’ve learned to tune it out enough that it doesn’t drive me crazy. And besides, a spirit tone is good. It means that one of my guides or protectors is nearby. Sometimes when I hear the sound, I know it’s an alert that trouble might be brewing. That’s what happened to me at the Victorian on Monday.

After I heard the strong ghost tone in the Red Room, I promptly left the room and went downstairs to the kitchen, where everyone else was talking. As I stood there, I heard a spirit tone swoop in, loud and urgent.

“One of my guides just swooped in,” I told them.

Marion, my friend who is also the caretaker for the Victorian, grabbed my arm and smiled. “Good, maybe she can protect me too,” she said. As it turns out, my guide wasn’t enough.

As soon as I got home later that day, I heard the male tone return. My body began trembling again from the inside out. I took immediate measures; something my mentor has taught me. I surrounded myself with a white light that radiated from my core. I said out loud, “this shield of white light will protect me from any energy that is not my own.” And then I timed it. “It will last for twenty-four hours from now,” I added. I then went upstairs and took a nice bath with sea salts, which act as a cleanser and a purifier. I also cut my cords.

As Barbara describes it, when we come in contact with ghosts, and even other people, we create a cord that attaches us. When I leave a haunted location, I always cut this cord, using my non-dominant hand, and tell them that they cannot follow me. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn’t work.

As the evening continued, I would feel and hear the ghost grow louder and stronger. Sometimes I can’t handle these things on my own, so I reached out for help. I messaged Barbara, and also my friend Sandy, who is going through similar issues. Sandy, unlike me, has pretty much mastered the ability to shield.

While her shield is Teflon-coated steel with diamond plated reinforcements, mine feels more like crumpled tinfoil with Scotch-tape and Band-Aids holding it together. Sandy responded to me first.

I knew she’d done something because as I sat in my bed reading, I could hear the sound fade and the trembling ease up until it was completely gone.

“Somebody must have helped me,” I said to myself, reaching for my IPhone on my nightstand. I logged onto Facebook and sure enough, there was a message from Sandy.

“Is that better?” she asked.

I took a deep breath. It was much better, but it only lasted for a few minutes. I’d later learn that she threw a shield over me from afar, something that seemed more like Star Trek than reality, but something I felt with my own body. It seemed to keep him at a slight distance, but he was still there. I’d need Barbara to finish the deed.

Last night was almost unbearable. The ghost tone was so loud, I couldn’t hear myself think. I’d occasionally hear the sound of a spirit tone swoop in. I imagined my protectors doing an invisible battle in my bedroom as I listened to the tones fade in and out as they moved around the room. My cats were acting as though they were watching an imaginary tennis game. Their heads were swiveling back and forth, trying to keep up with the things they could see. Needless to say, it took me a long time to get to sleep and when I did; my dreams were riddled with nightmares.

Barbara reached out to me today and took care of it. What she told me was very riveting. I guess I shouldn’t be so interested because my interest could feel like an open invitation for them to trample towards me in herds, but I can’t help it. Five years ago, I would have rolled my eyes at anyone telling a similar tale. I might have even suggested they seek mental counselling. But here I was, living through something that was both horrifying and fascinating. There is a great deal going on around us that we can’t see.

Being a sensitive isn’t something I would have willingly chosen for myself. While it is intriguing to know if there is a ghost or spirit present, it comes with a very large price. Until I’ve learned to cattle-prod them away from me, they will follow me just like I am prone to following them. In theory, it’s kind of amusing. The ghost hunter is being hunted by ghosts. In reality, it’s something else – something perfectly awful.

Barbara told me that he was angry and scared. He was worried that my book about the Victorian was going to draw more people to the house. He hates the people walking in and out of his room, asking him to answer silly questions. He just wants to be left alone to live the life that he lives. People are distracting. They pull him away from the world that he sees himself in, a world similar to the one he lived in when he was alive. When she told me he was a drinker, I knew who he was.

He was the man who burned to death in the master bedroom, a man by the name of Eino Saari. I protested when she told me. I always thought of him as a nice guy who’d met a tragic end. Unfortunately, he also has a dark side. He’s angry. He’s tired of all the commotion. He just wants us to all go away, something we’ve been hearing on evps for a while now. For my part, I’d promised to stop bothering him. I didn’t even bring my digital recorder on Monday. I just oversaw the photo shoot, gave the people who attended a quick tour, and then left. Apparently that wasn’t good enough.

I enjoyed about ten minutes of quiet before he came back again.

Dear God. I had just purchased an episode of Breaking Bad, my latest guilty pleasure, and I wanted to sit on the couch and watch it. Instead, I messaged Barbara again, giving her the news. She pulled him off of me and suggested several extra measures. She wanted me to bless water and spray it on every wall and window of my house, and then follow it up by putting sea salt around all the doorways and windowsills. I accomplished this in a matter of minutes. I’ve never attempted to bless water before, but I trust Barbara like I trust no one else. If she tells me to do something, you can bet that I’m going to do it.

So, it’s been an hour and all is still quiet.

One thing that lifts my mood is the solitary thought of my book. If they feel the need to intimidate me to prevent me from publishing it, maybe they know something I don’t know. Maybe they know that this might be the book that finally brings me the success I’ve been longing for.

And then I feel guilty for it. Am I just standing on their shoulders to climb to my dreams?

My hope is that the book does well, that the house remains closed for investigations, and the money it brings will help them to do the repairs that are so desperately needed, while keeping me out of debt as well. Is that a lot to ask for? Probably, but it’s all I have right now.

I can’t stop now. So much depends on this.

Please keep me in your prayers.

Joni Mayhan

The Soul Collector – The true story of one paranormal investigator’s worst nightmare

http://www.amazon.com/The-Soul-Collector-ebook/dp/B00EIHG90Q/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1381464557&sr=1-1&keywords=joni+mayhan

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=angels+of+ember+trilogy&rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Aangels+of+ember+trilogy

Lightning Strikes

Ember Rain

Angel Storm

Haunted Objects

Posted on January 13, 2014 by jonimayhan

Things were moving around in the house while no one was there.

A loaf of bread flew across the kitchen. Doors were opening and closing by themselves.

When Kim Huertas and her team were called in to investigate, they had no idea it would be as simple as removing a painting.

It was their very first investigation as a team. A friend of a friend asked them to come in to help, knowing of Kim’s abilities as an empathic medium. When they arrived, they saw some of the paranormal events with their own eyes.

Kim’s son took a picture of a mirror, catching himself in the frame. When they looked at the photo, they were surprised by what they saw. An enormous shadow person was looming directly behind him. Handprints would be found on the mirror shortly after, much too large for anyone in the house. The activity was escalating.

When Kim came into the kitchen to talk to the homeowner, the woman just stood there, looking at her with eyes that were deader than dead. Something was wrong with her, but Kim wouldn’t understand the extent of it until she opened her mouth to speak.

“How would you like it if I poked your eyes out with an ice pick?” she asked.

Kim backed out of the room slowly, never letting the woman out of her sight until she was a safe distance. She returned later with another group and together they began putting together the pieces of the puzzle.

Every time they tried to take photos in one specific room, the photos wouldn’t come out. Kim looked around, her gaze landing on a painting.

“Where’d you get that?” she asked.

The homeowner glanced at it, all memory of the ice pick threat long gone from her mind. “Oh, my ex-boyfriend sent it,” she said, as if it didn’t matter.

Kim would dig and learn that the painting was actually painted by her ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend. As it turns out, her mother practiced voodoo. The painting had a very powerful spell placed on it. Once it was removed from the household and the house was thoroughly cleansed, all the strange activity ceased, and life went back to normal.

When it was all over, the woman’s son told Kim something she’d never forget. “He hates you,” he told her, glancing towards the window. “You made him fly out the window, so he hates you now.”

All because of a painting.

This is why I’m very, very careful of what I purchase. I love going into antique shops and looking around. In fact, my friend Sandy and I play a game we call “find the haunted item.”

We will split up and walk the store until we find something with a hidden attachment, and then we’ll send the other one into the room to see if she can find it.

Being clairaudient, it is actually fairly easy for me. I just follow the sound of the tone. As I come into the room, I can hear it very faintly. I’ll play a game of warmer/colder, until the sound grows louder and I’m directly in front of it. Then, I put my hand on it, feeling for vibrations. Sometimes an image will pop into my head and I get an impression of who owned the item. Sometimes it doesn’t.

“It’s this lamp,” I told Sandy and she nodded. She’d felt it too in her own way.

We’re actually getting fairly accurate with it. It has helped us hone our sensitivities and has prevented us from bringing home haunted items.

My mother once shared a story with me about an old wardrobe cabinet her grandmother had in her bedroom. She was just a young girl, visiting her grandmother Carter in Louisville. She remembers being frightened every time she went into Carter’s bedroom.

“The boogeyman lives in that closet,” Carter told her.

She’d give it a wary glance and retreat out of the room. If Carter sent her into her bedroom for something, she’d stare at the wardrobe the entire time she was in the room, fearful something was going to jump out at her.

As an adult, my mother looked back at the memory and laughed.

“Carter probably just told me that to keep me out of her wardrobe,” she told me.

“But, what if she didn’t?” I asked, knowing there was more to the story. After Carter died, my mother was supposed to gain possession of the bedroom furniture, but it didn’t happen. Another relative came in before she could get there and took the wardrobe. My mother was furious. It caused a rift in the family that would never be repaired. It took thirty years for it to make any sense to her.

All it took was a question.

“Did you ever think that maybe Carter was protecting you from it?” I asked.

She stared at me, as the wheels and gears spun behind her eyes.

It’s possible, even probable, that the wardrobe wasn’t haunted. It could have just been chance that another relative grabbed it before my mother could get to it. But what if it wasn’t? She would have brought home a very haunted cabinet where her children lived, including one who was a budding sensitive, something Carter must have suspected. If Carter knew there was a boogeyman in the cabinet, then she must have had some ability herself.

I never heard what happened to the wardrobe. The rift it created separated the family, never to be repaired. Most of the people who were involved have long died and the furniture probably made its way into another home or an antique shop, perhaps.

These things happen more often than you’d think.

A beloved possession can be hard to let go of. It’s no different than a beloved house. A rocking chair, a walking cane, a mirror on the wall – they’re all potential items.

My advice to you: be careful when purchasing anything that once belonged to someone else. If your instincts tell you something’s amiss, it very well might be. If the hairs stand up on the back of your neck as you touch it, let it go. If you have dreams about it after seeing it for the first time, resist the calling. And by all means, if you bring it home and doors start opening and closing of their own accord, get it out.

Antiques can be lovely. They can be valuable, historical, and even cherished.

Just be careful they aren’t also haunted.

Joni Mayhan

The Soul Collector – The true story of one paranormal investigator’s worst nightmare

http://www.amazon.com/The-Soul-Collector-ebook/dp/B00EIHG90Q/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1381464557&sr=1-1&keywords=joni+mayhan

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=angels+of+ember+trilogy&rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Aangels+of+ember+trilogy

Lightning Strikes

Ember Rain

Angel Storm

The Soul Collector – Part 2

Posted on July 20, 2013 by jonimayhan

I was at a very bad place in my life. I’d been unceremoniously dumped by my boyfriend of two years, my family was a thousand miles away, and a very negative spirit had attached himself to me.

I wouldn’t learn how bad he was until I made the trek to Maine to spend Thanksgiving with my paranormal friends. The minute I walked into the house, the psychic of our group told me that I had a spirit with me and that he was bad.

Really bad.

He was a soul collector.

She said that when she looked at me, she saw hundreds, if not thousands, of spirits behind him. They were lined up, row upon row, following this spirit everywhere he went. And they looked sick, as if they’d died of some sort of tragic disease.

My blood turned to ice.

The place we investigated was the site of an old tuberculosis hospital. How could this have happened?

I am always very respectful of spirits when I investigate. I always ask them if they need help and never, ever provoke them just to get a response. Why would one of them follow me? It made no sense. Surely there were other people out there who were far more interesting.

That’s when I began to learn my fate in life.

I am a beacon.

People who are “sensitives” are able to sense spirits. Some just feel them move into the room, others have physical cues like a tingling on the back of their necks, or goose bumps that rise up on their arms. For me, the cue is actually physical. I hear them. I am clairaudient.

The tones move in, almost swooping down upon me. Some tones are high, some are low. As they move farther away, the tone grows softer. I’ve dealt with this ability all my life, but had recently been working with it on investigations. It was like having a new toy.

Unfortunately, like any muscle, once you begin flexing it and working with it, it grows stronger. It literally made me grow brighter in the spirit world. I must stand out like a bug light to a flock of moths.

She promised to help me with it and sent me on my way. It was a long drive home, hearing his signature tone in the car with me. I began to almost panic. How could I live like this, knowing someone very evil was lurking over my shoulder? How would I even begin to lie in bed and close my eyes? I was terrified.

I researched the subject as much as I could, learning that negative entities could actually collect other spirits. In some cultures, they are known to do this in order to achieve a higher rank in the spirit world. I slept very little, often retreating to the couch in the living room, where it felt a little safer. One thing was for sure: my bedroom was a hotspot for spirit activity.

Every time I went in there, my ears would ring like crazy. I could feel the sensation of eyes glaring at me, could see the movements out of the corner of my eyes. I would feel soft touches on my face, feel my hair being gently caressed. Sometimes the covers would be pulled off of me. My cats got to the point where they would flee from the room with their ears flattened. I tried to pray. I burned sage. I recited the Saint Michael’s Prayer. I recited The Lord’s Prayer. And I cried a lot.

Why me?

Seriously… This guy could have picked on any number of people. The place where I went to was popular with the paranormal world. Investigators were in and out of there on a regular basis. I touched base with the psychic again and she told me that it might have something to do with my overall well-being at the time of the investigation. When people are depressed, they are more susceptible to spirit attachments. Great. There’s nothing like being kicked when you’re already down.

The days passed by slowly. I couldn’t sleep and I couldn’t talk about it. My teenage son lived with me four days a week and I didn’t want to scare him with what was happening to me. But, on the other hand, I didn’t want to endanger him either. What was I going to do?

The psychic told me that the soul collector wanted me. That he wasn’t ever letting me go.

Mine. He told her.

She said that he stood behind me constantly, whispering in my ear.

“Can you hear him?” she asked me.

Thankfully, I couldn’t. I could just hear the ear shattering buzz that followed me through all the hours of my day. Knowing that he was with me nearly sent me off the deep end. He followed me into the bathroom, was always lurking close as I showered and dressed, he hovered over my bed all night long, just inches away from my face. He wasn’t letting me go.

He wanted to cut me off from everyone and he started with my electronics. I suddenly began having issues with my internet connection, and then my cell phone. I would call someone and the line would become filled with static. Sometimes it wouldn’t work at all. My phone would be dead and nothing short of rebooting it would get it to work again. Not only was I terrified, I was being systematically cut off from the rest of the world – cut off from the help I desperately needed.

I kept reaching out to the psychic, asking if she could come to my house, offering to pay her way, offering anything I could think of to get this spirit off of me. Unfortunately, she was going through issues of her own with family and her job. She kept telling me she would help me, but as the days went by, I began to lose hope. I fell into an even deeper fugue that I just couldn’t emerge from.

I’ve always been a “bounce back quickly” kind of person. I’ve never suffered from depression or had anything truly get me down for more than a day. I usually wake up the next morning, determined to conquer what is ailing me. This time, there didn’t seem to be any hope.

I’m thankful I had great friends as I was going through this. Since they were also ghost hunters, I didn’t have to prove to them that I wasn’t crazy. They knew that what I was dealing with was real. They listened to my stories, offered me couches and spare beds to sleep on, and tried to help me figure it all out. But, no one had an answer for me.

And it just kept getting worse.

The ear ringing grew to a level where it nearly drove me insane. I started hearing louder thumps on my walls, and the nightmares intensified, leaving me on the brink of insanity.

One day while I was working, I could feel him looming over my shoulder, but I tried to ignore him as usual. “Don’t give him anything,” the psychic had warned me. But, he found other ways to get to me. Very suddenly, my cell phone came on and began playing music. I sat stock-still, just staring at it. In order to turn my phone on, I had to push and then slide a button. To get music to play, I would have had to scroll through the apps to find the music icon. The worst part of all of this was the song choice.

“Addicted” by Saving Abel. It’s a song about a man who is emotionally and sexually addicted to a woman.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-ChyVXzbjA

It’s not the kind of song I wanted a soul collector serenading me with.

It hit me on two levels too, something I’m sure he was well aware of. I used to burn my ex-boyfriend CDs, selecting songs that made me think about him. This was one of the songs on the last CD I burned for him and it brought me back to a place where I didn’t want to go.

Emotionally, I was simply shutting down. I didn’t sleep more than a few hours a night. I stopped eating. I lost fifteen pounds, which wasn’t something that has ever been easy for me, and I started smoking again. I’d given it up years earlier, but here I was lighting up again. I was quickly moving from depression to oppression, something I wouldn’t understand until I reached out to another friend, Michael.

Michael is a paranormal investigator and a friend. He’d been studying with the Catholic Church on exorcisms. He is now the investigator the church calls when they have a report of a demonic possession. He goes in to check it out. If he feels it’s a true possession, he calls in the church to perform an exorcism, which he also participates in.

Michael, his wife Nancy, and friend, Steven, were at my house the day after my call. They literally dropped everything to help me.

Michael’s background in the paranormal field is complex. His mother was an Irish witch, who helped many people during his childhood. Besides being an experienced paranormal investigator, Michael is also a medium. He has the ability to sense and communicate with the spirit world. He walked around my house with his eyebrows raised. I knew he had found something, but he wasn’t telling me everything.

“You definitely have something here,” he told me. “But, we’ll deal with it.”

He burned sage, recited prayers, and sprayed holy water on every wall, window and mirror. He even blessed my pets. He told the spirit to leave, and then planted Saint Benedict medals at the four corners of my property. All was well for several days.

I got some of my energy back and began feeling like myself again. I was working on the first book of my paranormal trilogy, Lightning Strikes, at that time. I was down to the final edits and began making some real progress with it. I felt like I had my life back until he came back again.

The next time would prove to be even worse than the last.

He had me in his sights and he wasn’t letting me go.

Lucky me.

Joni Mayhan

Many of my experiences with the soul collector ended up in my paranormal trilogy, Angels of Ember. Lightning Strikes, the first book in the series, is available on Amazon.com for Kindle for only $2.99.

http://www.amazon.com/Lightning-Strikes-Angels-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B0085Q6SCK/ref=cm_cr-mr-img

Haunted New Harmony

Where History and Hauntings Collide

Tag Archives: spirit attachment

Ghost of the Week Club

Are Spirit Boards Dangerous?

Preview of Ghostly Defenses

Being a Sensitive

Paranormal Hitchhikers

Aside

Haunted Objects

The Soul Collector – Part 2