Ghostly experiences of a writer and bookworm

Tomorrow a percentage of the world will be celebrating Halloween and the many festivals and observances relating to remembering the dead.

The subject’s wikipedia entry states that “According to many scholars, All Hallows’ Eve is a Christianized feast influence by Celtic harvest festivals with possible pagan roots, particularly the Gaelic festival Samhain.” It also “begins the three-day observance of Allhallowtide, the time in the Christian liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all the faithful departed believers.”

Although I don’t think I’ve ever celebrated the occasion, as a schoolkid I was an avid collector of ghost stories (and still am to a degree). Whether I read them from a book that I never could find in the library again (9 stories to chill your spine, if I recall correctly) or heard around the campfire, ghost stories give me a thrill that no horror movie or thriller can top (and I loathe those by the way).

I’ve had my own unnerving experiences with presences from the other side and therefore have great sympathy with sensitives who regularly interact with these beings.

One of the first strange experiences I had, I attribute to an overactive imagination and fear of the dark: footsteps following me at night when I was in the later years of primary school.

Entering high school was great for me for several reasons, one being that I now had a vast source from which to collect ghost stories, which were in ample supply in the miner town of Phalaborwa. The added rumours of active Satanists also added fire to stories of many glimpses of shadowy figures darting from tree to tree in the (then) bushy areas in town, following unwary kids.

Upon hearing of my strange fascination, a friend of mine told me that a strange man had taunted her dad when he was small. When he finally told his family and they researched it, his description matched that of a former resident that had died years ago.

Another friend told me about a little girl that she noticed around the house after moving into their new home in a different part of town. She would sit at her computer (desktop PCs were still all the rage back then) with her back to the door and would see something flit past out of the corner of her eye. When she turned around, there wouldn’t be anything.

A few times afterwards, she had rushed to the door only to see the little girl run to the end of the corridor, turn and smile and disappear.

The same friend was also victim to a creepy spirit that hung around on the middle of the stairs leading to a family member’s flat and a malevolent one inside the flat.

I count myself lucky that my two distinct experiences were more ‘feeling’ and ‘hearing’.

The first took place during my years at university. I was visiting my gran for the weekend and enjoying the healthy food and frequent treats. One night I woke up from a voice saying my name and immediately thought that something had happend to my gran (who is quite sickly). It took me a few moments to realise that I was alone and that the voice I had heard was my granddad’s. Who had died three or four years prior to that night.

Sceptics still maintain that I had just been dreaming about him.

The second was my most chilling experience so far and I hope to keep it to that. After graduating, I ended up being unemployed for six months before finding a job. During that time I was staying with my parents in an old farm house, two structures that were used as the local farmers’ club house in years past and had been converted into one big structure.

The study, with the only working internet connection, was located at the one side of the house, the bedrooms on the other, with a very large sitting room inbetween.

As old houses tend to creak, I didn’t pay much attention to the creaks from the sitting room furniture. I was, however, always slightly uncomfortable walking through that particular room at night.

One evening around 23:00, I was in front of the computer, doing a last bit of internet surfing when I sensed someone walking to the room and standing in the doorway. I turned around to tell my dad that I’m finishing up and will be heading to bed soon and ended up staring at an empty doorway.

Freaked out, I shut down the computer and headed to bed. When I told my parents the next day, my dad laughed at me, but my mom had her own experience to share. She had been doing the ironing and had just moved a pile from a chair when she clearly saw someone sit down.

A couple of years later, my mom and I came across one of the house’s new occupants, who had become a good friend of my mom’s and a great neighbour. “Tell her about your weird experiences,” my mom urged over the railing of the Wimpy. The lady started telling me that their radio had been switching on randomly at night and that cosmetics and things went missing from the bathroom cabinet and ended up at the back of her closet.

They had tried and ruled out any logical explanation when she had heard my mom mention my ghostly experiences.

We’re of the opinion that it may have been one of the previous occupants, a man who had reportedly died of a heart attack in the main bedroom.

Whether you attribute it to the overactive imagination of a writer and bookworm or choose to believe my tale, I bid you a Happy Halloween.