An Inspiring Film

I went to see The King's Speech the other day. Really enjoyed it. I came away with three things on my mind:

1. I had been so engrossed in the film that I didn't realise I had been sitting there for over two hours until the credits began to roll.

2. It's a simple story. A man – albeit the King – has a speech impediment. He hires an expert to help him overcome his difficulty. The chap cures him. Yet they managed to string it out for two hours. Now that's how to tell a story!

3. I remembered one line from the film. It went something like this - “You don't have to fear the things that scared you when you were five.” Which, thinking about it, could be what the film is all about. In fact, that could form the theme for a whole lot of stories.

The Rhine Research Center

Whenever I think of parapsychology, images from Ghostbusters leap to mind.  I see Ray and Igon telling the dean about their research right before they lose tenure and are asked to leave the University.  The truth about parapsychology as a field can be found at the Rhine Research Center.  The Rhine Research Center was founded as part of Duke University by Dr. Joseph Banks Rhine and Dr. Louisa Rhine.   The Rhine Research Center  is located in Durham North Carolina and stands at the forefront of gathering scientific evidence to prove that such things as telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, psychokinesis, and survival of consciousness (hauntings, ghosts, and  mediumship) are real.  The Rhine Institutes says their goal is to, "aims to improve the human condition by creating a scientific understanding of those abilities and sensitivities that appear to transcend the ordinary limits of space and time."

Rhine was founded in the 1930's and began with all the type of studies a fan of Ghostbusters might imagine such as ESP card tests.   According to The Rhine Research Center's website, however, they have moved beyond such studies.  Their website says:

"ESP cards and dice games have long since been replaced by modern techniques that allow more subtle measurements of psi, such as by looking at the physiological changes or bioenergy characteristics of psychics and healers, or by measuring the telepathic awareness of emotional targets in a simulated dream-like situation. Efforts are made to detect clues that come directly from the psi experiencers themselves, whether they are healers, intuitives, or simply ordinary people who have these extraordinary experiences."

The Rhine Institute is interesting to me because they study the paranormal using the scientific method and publish their findings in peer reviewed journals.  One of my fellow bloggers, Courtney Mroch of Haunt Jaunts, had an interesting post a while back questioning whether any ghost hunter could really call themselves a professional or say they had any credentials.  Her argument was that the world of the paranormal seems to be run by people without professional degrees or credentials and that there is no way to verify who is truly a professional or not without such things.  I agreed with her, but I think places like the Rhine Institute offer a challenge to that notion.  If the paranormal can be studied and proved in a scientific manner by people with doctorates and credentials from a university like Duke in parapsychology,  perhaps there can be professional and credentialed ghost hunters.  They just may not necessarily be the ones on TV.

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
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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.