“A non-believer get the SPIRIT.”

This is the true story of a retired engineer turned farmer who had an unexpected conversion from non-believer to believer.

When I moved to an area near Sweetwater, Tennessee, it was easy to see that the area was the epitome of rural America. My first taste of that was when I pulled into the McDonalds drive-through to find myself behind a tractor. I say this to emphasize that this is the buckle of the Bible belt. In addition, it seems to be a highly favored place for folks from Oak Ridge to retire…and my new neighbor was one of these retired "Gentlemen Farmers".

A few days after my wife and I moved into the area, our new neighbor hopped in his old beat up pickup truck and drove the half-mile from his farm to our small chunk of land to shake hands and welcome us to the neighborhood. Being very neighborly ourselves, we invited him to "sit a spell" (this is Tennessee you know) and have a glass or two of sweet tea on the deck with us.

As we talked, he told us about being a retired engineer from Oak Ridge and, naturally, asked what type of work we engaged in. Well, with my wife the answer was easy. At the time she was a surgical scrub tech (that is the person you see on TV who when the doctor says "scalpel" whacks the instrument into his waiting gloved hand).

My answer came with a bit more trepidation. Not that I am ashamed about what I do. Actually, I am quite proud of being a Psychic Medium. I just wanted to make sure that no one in the area still believed in the old-fashioned, and somewhat irritating, notion that people who talk with the dead are witches and therefore should be burned at the stake or, at the very least shunned.

Throwing caution to the wind, I told him. He reacted in a very civilized manner, sagely nodding his head as if I had just told him, "I work down at the tractor repair shop." But he added, " I hope you don't mind if I tell you I don't believe in all that stuff, ghosts and what not." Since he was civilized about the whole thing, I decided I would be civilized too (I will try anything once). I replied, "Not at all, we each have our own belief systems. We discussed dead people and the price of tobacco for a few minutes before he downed the rest of his tea and announced that he, "better get back and tend the farm."

Okay, here is one of those, "oh-yeah-here-is-something-important-that-I-forgot-to-tell-you" bits. A few days earlier, my wife and I had done one of our "drive abouts" to have fun and get to know the area. Only ten or fifteen miles away from home, we found a marker dedicated to a Cherokee tribe whose village was flooded out when TVA damned the river back in the 1930s. The marker informed us the village was moved only a couple of miles away but the burial mounds were not moved and now resided under the nearby lake.

My assumption would have been that this action would have severely ticked off the spirits interred there but, if it did, at least one of them was quite philosophical about the whole thing. I know this because as we drove back home later, I looked in the rear-view mirror and noted the presence of an individual who was clearly Native American. The reddish-brown skin color and colorful but centuries out of date clothing was a dead giveaway (pardon the pun).

After I restored the car to the proper lane and proper heading (hey, even though I talk to spirits daily I don't often see one sitting as a full bodied apparition, smiling and hands on his lap, in the back seat of my car) I explained to my wife the reason for the short thrill ride I had just given us. Later, nerves more calmed, I communicated with the spirit in question and learned the following. The spirit had passed away a bit over two-hundred-and-thirty years earlier in the village that was now at the bottom of a lake. He also explained that his occupation was that of tribal shaman...basically a cross between priest and doctor and that he preferred to be called "The Father".

He went on to let us know he had joined us because he liked our spirits and knew we were going back to the little valley a few miles distant where he had frequently wandered when his spirit was clothed in flesh and blood (hey, that is how HE put it).

At any rate, we chatted for a bit until he faded out just before we arrived at our little homestead. Since this sort of thing is not unusual for spirits, we thought nothing about it. We knew that he may, or may not return to see us later but, again, that is just the nature of spirits and we thought nothing of it. However, he did come back into our lives a few days later, not long after the day we had met and talked with our new neighbor.

Three days after he had joined us on the deck for tea and conversation, late one afternoon, we saw out neighbor's truck coming down the road at a rapid clip. Suddenly he whipped the truck into our circular gravel driveway, peppering gravel on the side of the deck and the house behind it. The truck had barely come to a skidding halt when a very pale looking gentleman-farmer neighbor vaulted out, not bothering to shut the door and practically ran up the steep hill and the dozen steps up to the deck where we were sitting (and yes, we were having tea...it is a required part of deck sitting).

Our neighbor lost no time in exchanging hellos or other pleasantries but immediately came to the point of his abrupt arrival. "WHAT DO GHOSTS LOOK LIKE?" He asked in a voice similar to one you might use if you were asking a friend, "IS THAT A SCORPION THAT JUST DROPPED INTO MY PANTS?" In a calm, even voice (though tinged with a note of curiosity probably) I explained that ghosts could, and often did, look like they did when they were living. I told him they often appear solid but can appear as nearly transparent or even as a light or blurred fog, depending on the situation and/or the energy of the spirit in question.  "CAN THEY LOOK REAL?" He asked in the same scorpion-in-the-pants voice. I told him that indeed they could look to be as real and solid as the average person on the street if they had and could control enough energy.

Following more soothing talk and a glass or two of the required sweet tea, he explained exactly what happened. He had meditated several days about my occupation and even discussed the matter with one of his daughters. He had come to the conclusion that he would not come to any conclusion and had made the statement, "If I see one, then I will believe they exist." In light of that whole "be careful what you ask for you just might get it," scenario, he had put the issue aside and gone on with his life.

A day or so later, he had finished his day of gentleman-farming and gone back into his gentleman farm house. He then headed to his bathroom to wash off the parts of the farm still clinging to his hands. I have to tell you, at this point, that my neighbor did not expect to encounter anyone at that time since his wife and daughter were out of town but, encounter he did. His head snapped up as he walked down the semi-dark hallway in time to see another person standing in front of him. He was about to go into full fight or flight mode when he realized the person that he had encountered was smiling and did not appear in the least threatening. He was about to ask the smiling intruder just what the heck the man was doing in his gentleman farmhouse without invitation when the visitor faded from view.

It was at this point, he decided that a quick trip to our place was required in the hopes that the new, somewhat unusual, neighbors could explain the apparition he had just witnessed. He went on to describe his visitor as being short in stature with reddish-brown skin. That, along with the colorful clothing he described, left no doubt to either my wife or I that our car companion of a few days earlier had indeed gone wandering...at least as far as our neighbor's farm.

Note: Like the story yesterday, this story is absolutely true. Perhaps I embellished things a bit calling my neighbor a gentleman-farmer but he did seem quite mannerly and was, quite obviously by his clothing, tools and hay in his truck a farmer. I admit I made an intuitive leap to the gentleman-farmer part. The Father, on the other hand. Proved his reality in a very abrupt and amusing fashion. Well, amusing to us...our neighbor seemed a bit less amused about the visitation. We explained that The Father meant no harm and would not likely cause any problems but that he would likely leave if politely asked.

Some weeks later on another (less screeching to a halt) visit, our neighbor did say he had made the request to be left alone by the spirit and the spirit, up to that point, had evidently agreed to the arrangement. The father would drop by once in a while at our place for a brief visit but, as far as I know, he has never returned to our now believer neighbor's home.

-          Orion

“A Ghost Story”

To be perfectly honest, most of my life, I didn't believe in ghosts (or other supernatural phenomenon for that matter). I never DENIED their existence but I never acknowledged it either. A vacation in West Virginia, however, changed all of that.

I and a female friend, who was a firm believer in such things, were on vacation in an area where neither of us had been before (this is pre-Tracy you understand). Our wanderings had taken us to a historically recreated village in West Virginia and to a house which a brass plaque on the door told us had once been owned by a family named Wager.

My friend asked me to "let go" of my skepticism, close my eyes, and tell her what I "sensed" in the house. Playing along, I made up a story about a nine-year-old girl who died in 1849 with a cough and fever. I told my friend that I "sensed" that the girl's name was Maria and described how I imagined her to look. We discussed what I "saw" and she told me her impressions. I didn't think anything about the incident until, about two hours later we were touring an old cemetery high up on a nearby hill. When we reached the top we sat down to rest on a stone bench. It was then that I noticed the grave just across from where we sat. It was the grave of Maria Wager. She had died at the age and in the year I had "made up" a short time earlier. Later investigation also backed up other facts in my description including the fact that she had died of scarlet fever."

Currently we have three ghosts living with us in our little home. All three have been seen by others. First, there is Charles. He died in the 1700s. He was a mountain man in the little valley where we live. From what he communicated later, he was attracted by my hobby of shooting black powder rifles. Apparently he had gotten sick of something that sounded like influenza and froze to death when he could no longer care for himself in the wilderness. He first came to our attention when we saw our cats watching something that wasn't there. Scared the heck out of them! He also has a penchant for getting into our cabinets and turning bottles and such upside down.

Next, we came to know Jacob Marney, the only one to communicate his full name. Jacob was a long skinny "Ichabod Crane" kind of guy. He apparently died in the 1960s. He doesn't say much but he is the most "physical" of our visitors. He came to our attention while Tracy and I were sitting on the living room having a glass of tea. Tracy was sitting at one end of the couch and I was sitting in an easy chair nearby. All of a sudden, I saw the cushion at the opposite end of the couch from where Tracy sat depress as if someone were sitting down. I turned to Tracy and she was already staring at the cushion, her mouth hanging open.

"Did YOU see that?" She asked me while I was trying to shut my own fallen jaw. A few minutes later, the cushion uncompressed as if whoever were seated there had gotten up. In a later communication with him I learned his name and that he had once owned a large part of our little valley and had been a farmer.

The funniest incident regarding Jacob was when a friend came to visit a few weeks ago. A friend was staying in our guest room. He was drifting off to sleep the first night he was here when he felt someone sit down on the bed next to him. Thinking it was me, he said out loud "Go away and let me sleep, I'm tired!" He felt the person get up. As that happened, it dawned on him how strange that I or anyone would be in the bedroom without knocking and besides, he remembered he had locked the door. He opened his eyes. There was no one there and the door was still shut and locked. He says he didn't get much sleep the rest of the night.

Last of all we met "The Floating Lady" Tracy was the first to see her. She asked me one night if I could "see" (psychically that is) anyone in the bedroom with us. I shifted into that mindset and "saw" her. All the other disembodied spirits I had seen before were at ground level, just as they would have been when they were living. Not this one, however, she has always floated several feet above the floor with her head near the ceiling. She has never "spoken" so I am estimating her life time as being in the 1800s. She has always worn a brown dress and a shawl which she kept over her head. A female friend came to visit us sometime back and came out of our bathroom with a somewhat shocked and puzzled look. "I just saw a woman in the mirror and it wasn't me." She then described her as appearing to be out of the "old west" and that she was wearing a brown dress and a shawl. Cool, didn't know they could be seen in mirrors.

— Orion

Bubba and the Night Visitor

Bubba (not his real name..I gave that one to him to irritate him) was helping me build a deck and steps on my home. After the preliminary work of setting the upright posts, we had to wait overnight for the concrete to set so that we could continue building the rest of the deck.
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It was decided he would stay overnight in a large storage building nearby belonging to my brother that had a tiny apartment built in and then we would continue the next day. I walked him over (about a tenth of a mile away) and said goodnight. We agreed to start work whenever he got up and walked back. He was not an early riser so this worked for me.

Imagine my surprise when my wife and I were awakened minutes after daybreak by the sound of lumber being moved. I got up, dressed and stuck my head out the door to invite him in for breakfast. He muttered something, put the lumber down and made his way around to the back door to enter (the front door was five feet off the ground..thus the deck and steps).

Once inside, I notice he looked (if you will pardon the obvious pun) like death warmed over. I asked him if he had not slept well. His reply was, "I didn't sleep at all! That d--- place is haunted!"

I need to interrupt to explain a couple things. First, yes, the place is haunted. It is kind of the Grand Central Station of ghosts. There were at least a half dozen that we knew about. We just forgot to mention them to Bubba since they had caused us no issues. Second,  Bubba was an ex-cop, ex biker. A burly fellow not much given to panic attacks but, in this case, his night's visitor seemed to have shaken his nerves more than a little.  Third, the apartment is in a metal quanset type building and has one door that locks from the inside and has a barred window. After his nerves settled he explained the incident as follows:

After I left him Bubba locked the front door and went to bed.  As he was beginning to fade off to sleep he felt someone sit down on the bed beside him. After a hard day's work his sense of humor was lacking and he assumed, for some odd reason, that I had come back to play a prank on him. While I have been known to play an occasional practical joke, sneaking into a locked apartment, in the pitch dark to startle a huge ex-biker has never been on my to-do list.  It was at this time, however, he recalled the construction of the small apartment. One door locked from the inside with a metal throw latch and a barred window.

By his reckoning it took less than thirty seconds for him to dress, grab his blanket and pillow, and take up residence in the cab of his small pickup truck, a situation evidently not conducive to a sound night's sleep . All in all, I suppose he was lucky the spirit decided that one visitation per night was sufficient. An escape from that situation could have damaged him, the truck or both.

- Orion