Carl Grove
Justified & Ancient
- Joined
- Dec 14, 2014
- Messages
- 1,836
- Location
- Bury St Edmunds
I think I must have posted online, here and on Quora and a few other sites, many of my most interesting experiences. Very briefly, although I always had a low level of "paranormal" things going on, and was somewhat sensitive, it wasn't until I met my now wife, also with a history of occasional strangeness, that they exploded into life. First of all, soon after meeting my wife (who constantly recalls that it was as if we had already known each other), she introduced me to her rather dangerous-sounding father (East Ender, kept a baseball bat beside his door in case he didn't like the caller, etc.), whom I got along with well. They came with me on the bus as far as the station on my way home, and without warning, as we got off, me leading, I glanced back and in a moment of instant awareness knew, beyond a shadow of doubt, that we three had known each other for many, maybe even thousands of years. Something like that had happened a couple of times before with other folk, but with nothing like that intensity.
Then after we got together, and married a couple of years later, things got even more interesting. I had found a local job that might be right up her street as a nurse and carer, deputy manager of a local sheltered housing for the elderly organisation. We went around there together and the manager interviewed her, and later that evening phoned to offer her the job. It comprised an old Georgian house (maybe with older roots) with modern flats grafted on the back. She and the manager had flats on the 2nd floor of the house. It wasn't long before she realised that the place was haunted, and (when she was on rota to be in charge over the weekend) I spent quite a few nights there myself, and there was a ton of activity -- a sample: Going in to her office one morning my wife heard someone noisily washing up in the small kitchen down a short corridor. Curious as to who would be in there, she started down the corridor, the noises ceased, and in the kitchen there was no sign of any activity at all.
On another occasion, she was in the office chatting to one of the residents, when they heard footsteps coming down the corridor. The door opened, and they glanced up to see.. nobody there. Other less dramatic things, noises (some in her room were like jangling sounds coming from a wardrobe and other locations), and things being moved about (such as the heavy CCTV monitor that she used to allow entrance to late night callers at the main door), Once when the manager and her husband were off on holiday, sounds kept coming from their flat. One evening as she was going down to lock up, I was in her bathroom when I heard a loud thud, but not from the next door flat.. when I quickly went into her bedsit there was a stack of her romance novels on the edge of their shelf -- they had been pushed out and on the verge of falling, and I hurriedly shoved them back into place, whereupon I made the same muffled thud that I had heard from the bathroom.
The happening that stays with me most vividly was one Saturday when I arrived a bit early, and my wife told me to go up and wait for her in her room. I was still recovering from a breakdown, and relaxed on her sofa bed. It was a bright sunny day. Suddenly someone came in the room (the door being behind me at that time), walked past my head (on an arm of the sofa), and took up a position in front of the TV. But I couldn't see a thing. It was, as they say, a presence, and I knew it to be (1) male, and (2) very friendly and pleasant. Moments passed then I heard my wife's keys jangling as she opened the door. It was one of those rare times when I thought quickly, and as she entered I said, "I think we've got company." Her immediate reply was, "Oh yes, in front of the telly." The presence slowly faded away.
Several of the residents with medical problems, some serious, used to visit the local healers who worked at the village hall every Thursday, and they swore they felt a lot better for it. So my wife suggested I try it. I was quite sceptical about it and did nothing, so of course she booked me in anyway, and went with me (to make sure I did go, I suspect). It was a pleasant large room with chairs arranged in pairs in the middle and others around the periphery. The 6 healers would work with 6 patients at a time in the middle, for I think 20 minute sessions. Pleasant New Age music was playing. Afterwards patients and healers would discuss the session and then another session would begin. Patients would be offered tea and biscuits afterwards. So the hall was always full of people. I had read that people sometimes felt a sensation of heat, but I was not prepared for the blast of heat that I experienced -- like opening the oven door! And afterwards I felt a lot better -- in fact, as we left, I suggested we go on a long bus ride! So I decided to carry on.
One day my regular healer was herself ill [this was not uncommon, and despite their protestations that they were just channeling energy from above, I felt that they were actually using their own, and maybe depleting it] and I had another, a very butch-looking lady with cropped hair, and almost an angry expression. After I explained that my main problem was my lower back and the session began with a neck massage (many healers would not physically touch the patient at all, others would), I felt an extreme sensation of heat in my lower back, and then she began a very vigorous massage. I could feel her fingers and thumbs digging in hard, and I thought, "My goodness, this girl is strong!" At the end I felt much better. I explained about the amazing heat I had felt before she started the massage and she looked confused. I repeated it, and she remarked, "Someone else must have been touching your back." I thought this was ludicrous, she and everyone around would notice if someone went up to me and started a massage! Then, as I relaxed with my cup of tea, I noticed, for the first time, that all the plastic seats in the hall lacked any gap at the back where anyone could even touch your back, let alone give you a massage! [A year or two later I started going evenings to one of the healers, and having some unknown personage touching my foot (where I had a tendonitis prob;lem) almost every session! Always touching the area between the big toe and the next one. Not long after I had acupuncture on my ankle and I noticed that the Chinese doctor always placed a needle in exactly the same location. When I asked her why, she explained that was the major acupuncture meridian.]
Since then we moved out to the country and I no longer had any hauntings or healers to interact with, but events have continued nevertheless. Many have seemed more like glitches in the matrix than "paranormal", although of course, that may be a false dichotomy. For example, the usual vanishing and (sometimes) reappearing object phenomenon. A near empty bottle of massage lotion, no longer manufactured, suddenly becoming full, for example. Two events have stood out -- one, a piece of blanket that had been roughly cut down, and as a result constantly slipping out from under the mattress, suddenly becoming whole again, and my wife insistant that it had always been full length. And the second, after a period of heavy snowfall when postal deliveries had ceased, when a postman came about 2pm with an expected parcel, and later on I realised that he had left no footprints in the snow..
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