Haunting in New Orleans
Every so often even the most experienced practioner of any discipline will get tripped up. Life has a tendency to knock us off our high horse whenever we forget to continue our learning process. In keeping things real, I’m about to divulge a recent experience I had with a fellow practioner (for privacy purposes I’ll simply refer to her as Rachel) while meeting up for a girls weekend of fun in New Orleans for this year’s Hex Fest. Writing this blog while the events are still fresh in my mind, I still am experiencing a slight state of confusion. While I am deeply troubled by the experience, I admit to still having a need to ask myself “did all of that REALLY happen or was I over-reacting?” Although I would love to be able to chalk this one up to an over reactive or irrational mind, I can feel the truth of the experience lingering within me. Indeed this experience was real, regardless of the Hollywood flavor it took on.
The weekend began on Friday afternoon as I stepped off my flight from California to greet the sticky humid summer climate of New Orleans. I was excited to see my dear beloved soul sister for our planned weekend of fun while attending the annual Hex Festival. Rachel had booked a cottage room in a beautifully decorated bed and breakfast on the edge of the French Quarter in a mansion built in the late 1800’s. I had quickly taken a look at the place on their website and was super excited to spend the weekend in such a charming place rather than a sterile hotel environment. I pulled up Uber on my phone, got into my driver’s car, and told him the name of the bed and breakfast I was heading to. He was not familiar with the name of the place but did know the area so we headed off towards the direction of the address.
As we pulled up to the correct address, the building looked a bit intimidating. There was no sign on the front of the place or anything else to indicate it was a bed and breakfast. Additionally, the entire property appeared to be locked up without an open entrance for guests to come and go. Both the driver and I had some hesitation about the place and he offered to drop me off at The LaMothe house which was half a block away suggesting “perhaps this is the place your friend booked and just gave you the incorrect address”. I exited the vehicle and entered the location, but clearly it was a different place. Apprehensively I walked back to the prior location and called the number of the mansion’s owner my friend Rachel had provided me with. An elderly lady named Ruth pleasantly answered the phone and told me that she would come downstairs to let me into the property. She showed me to the cottage area where we would be staying and must have asked about three times what time I expected my friend to arrive. I answered that I wasn’t sure but she had to be back by 4:30pm because we had a dinner cruise planned for the evening. On the fourth time she asked the question I finally said, “well she is getting a tarot reading, so I really don’t know when she will be done.” Upon hearing my response, Ruth then said “oh, well if she is having a reading done she might not show up at all.” I thought that was rather an odd thing to say, but nothing else appeared to be too out of the ordinary so I figured all was well. The place was a bit run down, but was decorated quite nicely with historical antiques of the items which would have been of the period the mansion was built. I figured all was well and my friend would be pleased once she arrived.
From the moment Rachel arrived, she was not pleased. As soon as she walked into the place, I could sense she had a definite feeling of agitation but I figured it was simply due to being on the road for a long period of time and possibly not having time for a cigarette break. Lack of parking was the first hurdle and it was clear Ruth had not been truthful about the facilities when my friend had originally booked the reservation. Additionally, we were only provided with one key to the place to come and go through the courtyard that required the force of a football player to open and close the water swollen door. All of this displeased Rachel as she had paid a great deal for the stay and felt the facilities were not in line with the amount being charged. I agreed, but we decided to simply make the best of things and get ready for our evening activities. We left for our dinner cruise on the Delta Queen and had a lovely evening with the other Hex Fest participants floating down the Mississippi river at sunset. After having a nightcap at a local favorite hangout, we returned to the mansion and retired for the evening.
The next day everything went to hell. We began the morning well enough by leaving for our morning workshop and then having a quick breakfast together by the pool of the hotel where the workshop was being held. It was after this that we parted ways while I went to the workshop and Rachel handed me her tape recorded saying she would join me after 5 minutes so she could have a quick smoke. The workshop was quite crowded and there were no extra seats so I stood next to the doorway waiting for her to arrive. That was when things began to get very strange. I began to go into a weird sort of trance and failed to turn on the tape recorder partially because I was standing by the door where there was no place to set it down discreetly but also like I was not thinking clearly. I started to become anxious when I saw people coming in and out of the door that were not my friend and wondered what had happened to her. Had she decided to do something else and simply left me? The strangest part about this was it was almost as if something was holding me in the room and it didn’t even dawn on me to exit and go looking for her. Had I simply stepped out the door, things would not have made the turn that they did because unknown to me, Rachel was sitting on the floor in front of the room’s door which had been locked trying to communicate with me telepathically to open the door for her. Now, we have a strong connection with one another which is part of the reason we are such great friends with one another so this was not entirely a strange approach to either of us. And while she was doing this I felt a tapping on my shoulder yet chose to ignore it – again like I was in some sort of weird foggy state. However, clearly Rachel was not being herself either as it was quite out of character for her to simply sit there and not knock on the door. After the end of the workshop I saw her come in and she asked me if I had recorded the workshop for her. When I replied I had not as I had no place to set down, it upset her greatly but she did not mention it right away. I mentioned I wanted to ask the presenter a quick question which also upset Rachel as we had made plans to run some errands before the next workshop but she simply said okay and left without expressing her disappointment. After having a quick conversation with the presenter I tried to find Rachel in the hotel and after texting, received a reply that she had left to return to the bed and breakfast to walk off her negativity and disappointment. A series of broken and delayed text messages continued during the remainder of the day, where I erroneously assumed she had gone to do some activities on her own. By making this assumption, I went about my day figuring I wouldn’t see her again until the evening and came up with a plan B to fill the time on my own. During this time, unknown to me, she had continued to return to the bed and breakfast at multiple points during the day to see if I had returned. Each time she returned to the room, she began to experience deep feelings of anger and resentment thinking I had simply blown her off for the day. By the time I returned to the room after 5pm, she was understandably quite upset and I was utterly confused. We talked out the events of the day, and there were several things that did not make sense it either one of us, but we decided to get past it and go out for a cocktail.
It wasn’t until we returned to the room after our cocktail that the puzzle pieces began to fall into place. As we bulldozed our way through the swollen stuck courtyard door to retire for the evening, we immediately noticed a strong foul odor in the courtyard which had not been there previously. Even with a couple of strong drinks in us, we both instantly perked up thinking it was rather strange. I was still quite confused and overwhelmed by the events which happened during the day and taken aback by the fact that it did not appear neither Rachel or myself were ourselves. We made some casual remarks about the place just seeming to have some bad energy circling about it and then I got the inclination to do a little more research on the history of the place. This was when things began to shift from the abnormal to the paranormal and we began to really get the creeps. First, the website did not openly advertise the place had any history of ghosts or hauntings but after some further digging online we discovered that the place was indeed quite haunted. The mansion did not have a history of violent deaths on the property as many other haunted historic buildings in New Orleans, but the original owner who built the place had died on the property. There was also a rather sad story attached with the property where he had built the property in hopes of raising a family, but the young lady he loved in secret ended up married to another. Clearly he had unfinished business at the end of his life and ended up bequeathing the property to his secret love after she cared for him on the property while he was ill in his final years.
Both Rachel and I felt the story was rather shocking for the 1800’s – married women did not simply leave their husbands and homes to care for another man who happened to be ill. Obviously there were some unknowns which were not documented surrounding their relationship. As the evening progressed and we learned more about this history, fear began to set in and we became quite unsettled. Apparently the current owner Ruth, had discovered a painting of the original owner hidden in the attic, took it out and threw a homecoming gala to welcome him “home”. It seemed to be yet another oddity since the original owner had never left. What exact form of the original owner had Ruth been welcoming home?
Neither Rachel nor I were prepared for such an experience and as we began to realize we were sleeping in an authentically haunted house, events continued to spiral out of control. Cold spots moved about the room and brushed past us. Small items began to move about the room. Highly personal (but not terribly valuable) items which belonged to us disappeared and others which did not belong to us or the room appeared out of nowhere. Our luck began to make a turn for the worse, time appeared to be altered and moving more quickly, but at the same time a 3 hour tea light took over 6 hours to burn out. More smells appeared, specifically the smell of sulfur as Rachel drifted into an almost sleep state which is a known giveaway for the presence of earthbound entities. Foggy and smoky apparitions appeared in the room. By the end of the entire weekend both Rachel and I were thoroughly rattled and would have done and/or paid anything to get out of that room unharmed and alone. Fortunately we had some resources from the Hex Festival to give us some guidance, but never having dealt with such entities we still couldn’t believe everything we had experienced. Returning to the safety of our homes, we employed all the cleansing and healing methods we were familiar with to leave the darkness of our experience back in NOLA.
My purpose in sharing this story is to help those who may find themselves in a similar situation down the road. Prior to this last trip, I only had one other paranormal experience with a ghost during my teen years and after my mother forcibly told it to leave, never ever had another experience with a ghost. My attitude had been “my mother had been such a strong protective force that I must now be protected and ghosts are afraid to mess with me”. Ha, how ridiculous of me! This spirit Rachel and I encountered had zero fear. In fact it showed great intelligence as it continued to change manipulation tactics to get to us once we figured out what was going on and bonded together to combat it. No one is immune to such an old and strong spirit and even though we made some rookie mistakes in dealing with it, the best course of action would have been to leave immediately if we known what we were up against. I do realize there are folks reading this who may think it was all in our imaginations and I completely understand where they are coming from. I myself have been known to be very skeptical, but experiencing something this intense has made me much more cautious about where I will choose to sleep at night in the future. Until you have experienced such an event first hand, it’s difficult to understand the degree to which your emotions can be manipulated. But I don’t want this article to be solely about fear and the recounting of ghost stories. After some thought on the matter paired with some guidance and research, here are some things I was able to gain out of the experience that I hope will benefit others.
Understand from the start what a ghost can and cannot do.
The most common types of hauntings will affect your emotions and electricity in the building (e.g. flickering lights). Earthbound ghosts “feed” off the lower vibratory emotions. Anger, fear, lust are all emotions which provide fertile feeding for the unseen entity. Pay close attention to how you are feeling, whether or not it is justified or out of your normal character. This will provide you with some clues as to whether or not there is a ghost in your presence.
If you suspect something is a bit off, pay attention to whether or not you feel cold spots or something cold brushing past you. During the nights we stayed and felt cold spots, it was over 90 degrees out with insane humidity. There was no logical reason to feel cold ANYWHERE in that town!
Understand what causes objects to move, disappear, or appear.
After years of thinking a ghost is capable of moving objects, I found some information to the contrary. There are people who are natural kinetic mediums and may even be completely unaware of it. A ghost itself cannot move an object, however if it has access to a kinetic medium it can use that person’s abilities to cause items to move, disappear or appear. When I discovered this, it helped alleviate some of my fears as I knew that either Rachel or I must have some kinetic mediumship abilities and if we had not been present the ghost would not have been able to cause the movement of objects. This is how poltergeists are able to work. But it is also important to note that even though the ghost is performing actions through another person’s skills, the person is not necessarily able to control those actions and harm could still take place in the form of accidents, falling objects, etc.
Know thy self!
In general, after such an intense experience, I feel it is best practice to not spend time in haunted locations. I feel it is even more impetrative that you not sleep in such locations as we tend to be more vulnerable (both physically and psychically) when we are asleep. Lastly, if you are a practioner of magick I add even more caution for you. My rational for this is most seasoned magicians are adept at channeling vast amounts of energy towards a desired goal. We feel things deeply to bring about change and are comfortable working with unseen energetic forces. I have not confirmed this with any other ghost hunting sources, but my intuition and logic tells me that such a powerhouse of energy would be an irresistible and delectable treat for an energy sucking entity to feast upon.
Claim and stand in your power
Lastly, it will be your ability to stand strong in your strength and power which will see you through and protect you. On our last night there, as us two big bad witches were whimpering and clutched to each other in fear surrounded by a circle of salt, I somehow had enough sense to call my mother at 1am. She told us to stop our nonsense immediately and get a hold of ourselves. She then proceeded to discuss the situation with us and calm us down enough to get through that final night. Still not wanting to look around the room and see a smoky apparition hovering in the corner, I kept my face buried in the pillow and focused on my mother’s love and protection knowing that whatever events continued through the night would not harm me. By focusing on better feeling emotions, the spirit was no longer able to feed off my fearful energy.