The Haunting of Halcyon House

Halcyon House is one of the most prominent and historical houses in the Georgetown area.  It sits beside the Potomac with a quiet, historic beauty that invites ghost stories and its history doesn't disappoint.  Halcyon House was built by Benjamin Stoddert, the first secretary of the US Navy.   The house was well known by society and was said to serve as a social hub for the politicians of the time.    Stoddert died in 1818 and the house changed hands many times.  It eventually became a stop on the underground railroad.  Its basement was connected via underground tunnels to other stops along the railway and an untold number of slaves seeking freedom passed through the subterranean portions of the historic, Georgetown house.   Many slaves also died seeking their freedom in this house.  The trip through the underground railroad was perilous and many say that the slaves that died in Halcyon House still remain there.   Their ghosts still cry out for freedom from their subterranean lair.  The tunnels beneath the house have been walled up, but the ghosts remain.

In the 1930's, a man named Alber Adsit Clemens bought Halcyon house. Clemons was a cousin of Mark Twain and changed  Halcyon House drastically. Clemons was more than a little bit mad and he came to believe that as long as he kept building on the Halcyon House, he would never die.  He added rooms, doors to nowhere, pointless staircases, and useless halls.  He added new apartments, a crypt, and a coach house.  After Clemons died, the haunting activity increased.   Residents of Halcyon house since this time have described many ghostly encounters.  They have described being levitated above their beds at night, seeing phantom women, hearing strange noises, objects moving on their own, and seeing the ghost of Benjamin Stoddert and Alber Clemens. 

Halcyon House is currently owned by a sculpture who has put a great deal of time and effort into restoring Halcyon House and making it  beautiful.   He has had the house on the market for several years now and the beginning asking price for this beautiful building was 30 million.   The price has dropped.  Halcyon House was for sale for 19.5 million in April of 2010.   Although the house is for sale, it is far from empty.  The current owners still rent it out as a venue for special events and parties and is a common location for weddings so ghost stories still drift out of the house like a steady fog.  The ghost stories are so many they can't all be listed.  Phantom cries are a common noise in the old house as are the sounds of objects moving.   John Alexander wrote a book on the haunts of Washington D.C. and in it he said that Halcyon House was the most haunted house in Washington D.C.

The Archetypes of Hauntings

The more I read about hauntings and discuss hauntings the more I have come to believe that hauntings fall into very similar categories and types.  I am open to disagreement on this subject, but it seems  to me that no matter where you are in the world most hauntings fall into one of several categories.  In psychology I am not much of a Jungian.  I tend to be a cognitive behaviorist, but when I read about folklore and even when I hear ghost stories that are true ghost stories, I hear patterns in them that correspond a little with Jung's archetypes.  Carl Jung was an early psychologist who believed  in something called a collective unconscious.  He believed all people drew their thoughts from a similar source and this accounted for why people from every different culture had myths and stories that were very similar without ever having known each other.  For example; most cultures have a dragon myth and a Cinderella story. He also believed we all had universal symbols that we use to interpret the world.  Jung's main archetypes included the Great Mother, the wise old man, the child, the beautiful woman, the devil, the trickster, the scarecrow, and the shadow. These archetypes symbolize core desires within us. I think many of the hauntings I've explored fall into similar archetypes as these and I'm going to break down and explain some of these hauntings.

The White Lady Ghost Story:  These are some of the most common ghost stories.  There are also green lady and grey lady ghost stories that follow the similar pattern of a beautiful young woman, often betrayed or hurt in love, who somehow dies and leaves a tragic ghost behind.  This would fit into Jung's beautiful woman archetype.

Poltergeists:  Poltergeist literally means noisy ghost.   It is a haunting that causes much commotion.  Objects move and break and are thrown about.  Many people now believe that poltergeist hauntings are somehow connected to one person.  This person is usually an adolescent going through great turmoil.  Some believe it is the adolescent themselves who is causing the haunting.   This type of haunting conforms to Jung's trickster archetype.  The haunting is caused by one person who is causing a lot of commotion.  Loki would love it.

The Crying Child:  I've seen a lot of this type of haunting around bridges.  Almost every town in Alabama has a cry baby hollow ghost story.  I've also seen weeping children in houses and buildings.  Usually, the child has a sad story and their crying ghost is the lingering remnant of their tragedy.  This conforms to Jung's child archetype.

Demons:   I don't hear these ghost stories often but when I do they are the most horrifying and terrifying ghost stories.  I've had several people tell me stories about being tormented by a hostile spirit of some kind who is clearly malevolent and will often work to cause bodily harm against the person they are tormenting.  This conforms to Jung's devil archetype.

The Guardian Ghost:  I've heard many stories about helpful ghosts.  These ghosts usually begin as a classic haunting but when trouble arises they are quick to help.  These ghosts would fit the great mother archetype.

The Classic Haunting:  The classic haunting is the most typical ghost story.  Someone has died in a house or building a piece of them remains.  They are usually attached to the building itself and have some connection to the location for some reason or another.  These hauntings would fit into Jung's shadow archetype.  They are the opposite of the rational self.  They are the unexplainable things that connect us to the other side and chaos.

I'm not entirely sure why haunting types seem to fit so neatly into the Jungian archetypes.  Jung himself would argue that this is just more proof of his theoretical collective unconscious and his belief that ghosts represent some part of our core desires.  I'm not to sure about that.  Maybe  there is something that connects us all in life and in death and draws us to similar stories and places, but I think it more the part of what makes us human than some outside consciousness.  I would tend to believe his theories on core desires would come closer to the truth in this matter.   Whatever the cause,  it is fun to look at ghost stories like this.  I may not agree with Jung much but his way of looking at the world certainly hits home in many instances.

The painting above is by an artist named Renee Gandy.  This paintings name is Shadow Archetype.  You can find her work at http://fauvestudio.blogspot.com/2009/07/shadow-archetype.html.  Her work is also available on Etsy.

One Small Step

I often see comments by writers in blogs and magazines who claim that almost every time they tell someone what they do for a living they get the response 'I'd love to write a book'. They then go on to reflect on why these people don't do just that so I thought I'd put forward my own ideas. To me it's very simple. Writing is BLOODY HARD WORK.

O.k. maybe it's not too difficult to think up a scenario and vague plot. But when you get down to the details of the story, characterisation, dialogue etc. it takes a lot of effort. I don't know about you but I sometimes agonise for ages over single sentences, even words. I sweat and I get headaches. Then there's spelling, grammar...

And the hardest part? Sorry to bring up a sporting analogy yet again but I used to have my own ideas about that too. I used to compete at triathlon. The races were what I looked forward to but the training took a lot of self discipline. And it didn't matter how cold that lake was or how muddy the the run course or how steep those hills were that you felt if you went any slower you might as well get off your bike and walk. Nothing compared with taking that first step out of the front door and forcing yourself to go out training. It could be a freezing January night or a hot summer afternoon when everyone else is outside drinking beer. Just to strap on your trainers and drag yourself from in front of the TV and go out and do the work - that's what took the effort.

So it is with writing. The first words are the hardest to come up with. So my advice would be to take that first step. Get a scrap of paper, a fag packet, a bus ticket, anything. Write a sentence and that's it. You're a writer.

Holding Lawyers

From: Mr. Donald Lee
Subject: RE: REQUEST FOR YOUR RETAINERSHIP AND PARTNERSHIP AS COMPANY REPRESENTATIVE.
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Reply-To: donaldlee_ceo@yahoo.com


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The Cemetery in the Snow

It rarely snows in the South.  It snows so rarely that all of life seems to freeze when the first snow flake hits the ground.  School stops, work stops, the stores are quiet.  The snow casts a strange silence in the South and I couldn't help but wonder what the cemetery would look like draped in quiet white.   So I went to Huntsville's most famous cemetery to take pictures and explore a little in the snow.  Maple Hill Cemetery is the oldest and largest cemetery in Alabama.  It was begun on two acres of land and those acres were sold to the city for 200 dollars.  The cemetery has grown to over a hundred acres.  Its oldest grave stone is from1812 and it is of a little girl. Like many cemeteries, Maple Hill Cemetery boasts many ghosts.  Its long history and many stories stretch as far as the imagination. Ghosts and stories hide behind the tombstones like shadows waiting to spring out.  

The most famous ghost said to live in the cemetery is Sally Carter.  She is Huntsville, Alabama's most famous ghost and she is best  known for haunting the carter mansion.   After her grave was moved away from the carter mansion, her ghost has also been seen in Maple Hill cemetery where her grave now resides.  Sally Carter was an unfortunate young woman  who died of an unexpected illness while staying at the mansion.  Her ghost has been seen numerous times at the mansion and at the cemetery.

One of the crypts at Maple Hill Cemetery is also home to the ghost of an elderly lady.  Her body rests in one of the large above ground crypts in the cemetery.  According to legend,  in life the woman loved sitting on the front porch in her rocking chair.  She loved it so much her beloved chair was placed in the crypt with her after she died.  People say that if you push your ear up to the door of the crypt you can hear her chair gently rocking inside the crypt.  I tried this and heard nothing but the wind, but the story is wonderful none the less.

All is quiet

Things have been slowing down in the phisherman arena. I am sure this is, in part, because I am not listed on some of the sites that I formally did. So, for fun, I am throwing this beauty up. Honestly, if you even considered this one for a second, you should not have made it through law school.

From: Webmail Administrator.
Subject: Verify Your E-mail Account
Date: January 15, 2011 10:30:44 AM PST
Reply-To: webmatser@cyber-wizard.com

Dear Webmail User,

We've been making some vital maintenance on our Webmail system.
During this period you might have login problems in accessing your E-mail account, due to the congestion of Users that's why going through this process on webmail maintenance.
We will deactivate all unused E-Mail Account, to prevent your E-mail Account from deactivation immediately confirm your E-mail account and with the registry information's as follows;

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Once We receive the registry information's from you during this process of webmail maintenance
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The Ghosts of Antarctica

 Antarctica is the coldest, driest, windiest, and highest continent in the world.   It is also the loneliest continent in the world.  The very whisper of its name brings to mind images of desolate snow covered landscapes and abandoned, snow covered towns wrapped in silence and ice.   When I was young and wild,  I dreamt of travelling to Antarctica and seeing its vast, white, emptiness.   Those were the days when I did crazy things, like climb Mt. Kilimanjaro.  I never thought of ghosts back then, but it is no surprise that Antarctica is haunted.  Any continent that has a mountain range called the ghost range must be haunted.  The ghost range are very high mountains, but are called the ghost range because they have never actually been seen by people.  They are hidden beneath 4m of ice that never melts so all that can be seen of them is ice.

There are many ghost stories lingering in the frigid cold of this continent.  Ross Island is one of the many icy islands that surrounds Antarctica and is considered a continuation of the continent.  McMurdo Station is a United States base on Ross island.  One visitor to this base, commented that as soon as she entered the base, she knew something was wrong.  She could feel the wrongness in her toes.   She isn't the only one who feels this wrongness, because Ross Island is considered by many to be thick with ghosts.  In 1979,  an Air New Zealand flight crashed into Ross Island killing 257 people.  The plane crashed into Mount Erebus.  Those who visit Ross Island have described ghostly encounters of all sorts. Visitors to the base have heard ghostly footsteps and  voices in the lonely darkness.  The ghosts of the victims wander this island.

Scott's Hut at Cape Evans is also said to be haunted and visitors there have also said to have had paranormal encounters.  During the winter of 1911, 25 men of the Terra Nova shore party lived in the hut. From here Scott and his men set out on their deadly journey to the South Pole.  One visitor commented that just stepping into the hut made him feel uneasy.  The ghosts of the ill fated explorers are still said to linger there, leaving an uncomfortable feeling behind them.  This hut is now abandoned, but the ghosts remain.  There is a cross nearby the hut.  This cross was built  in memory of the three members of Shackleton's Ross Sea Party who died not to far from the hut.  It is possible that these ghosts haunt the hut as well.  The Hut seemed to call to ill fated explorers and the images of this hut serve as a reminder of all who have died trying to conquer this brutal continent.

There are many other ghosts lingering in Antarctica.  Abandoned huts and deserted whaling stations serve as reminders of those who have lived and died in the ice.  There are so many stories I could do several posts on them and maybe I will.  As I sit drinking my hot cocoa and looking out on the winter wonder land that Alabama has become, I can't help but think of the snowy ghosts of Antarctica and dream of some day travelling to meet them.