Scary ghost stories and stuff (1)

Article 4: Ghosts Gone Bad

The premise of this article is that ghostly beings (human or otherwise) dwell on the other side and while there are garden variety good ones, there can sometimes be bad ones.

Bad is purely a subjective word, to some degree, but there are core components; power, greed, lust, and all things base in nature. A ghost gone bad is an engorged component of one or all of these. It is the succubus, the demon, or the legendary nightmare hag.

The succubus is caught up in sexual fervor; the demon loves the power over frail mortal minds, and the hag delights in torture and fear. There too are souls that while having shed their physical shell in death, bring to the other side the one thing they cannot readily shed -- the wounded or inflated ego -- hell bent on mortal suffering.

"Ghosts gone bad" is a scenario that happened to me for a period in my youth. Typical of many teenagers (especially these days), I was wracked with conflicting feelings: separating parents and a myriad of other negative emotions, which would attract such a ghost. I'm sorry to say I was playing with the Ouija Board at the time and having very impressive results-- so much so that Ị was later labeled a witch. But this portal, and my youth, beckoned something I had not anticipated -- a ghostly predator.

 It took me some time to figure it out. Our pet Labrador wouldn't come to my room at night. It would stand at the doorway and growl at "something" inside. My father once heard screams originating from my room in the middle of the nightly only to rush in and find nothing but my sister and I sleeping. What was it? Had he imaged it? A year later my father left the family and this added unhappiness led to an escalation of the incidents. The room would grow cold; I'd become conscious in the middle of the night and feel fingers clawing at my side. My tongue seemed to swell inside my mouth (imagined or otherwise, it didn't seem to matter to me at the time) and I'd try to scream but my body was somehow a powerless prey to a force beyond my control.

You might say it was my imagination or troubled youth, which would be a logical conclusion, considering my father had left, but I invited friends over for their own investigations into this realm of suffering that had become my life. In one particular event, a male friend of mine came over and was quite cocky and sure that not only was nothing amiss, but even if I were there, he'd be the one to drive it out. I was very hopeful indeed, as I was so tired of the sleepless, frightening nights. I just wanted it over, if you can imagine.

So one evening when we had the house to ourselves, he came over to "investigate and propel" what he thought were the ghostly intruders. In retrospect, one can say it's one's ego over another, is it not? Regardless, he came to my home and was doing what I would call a very inexperienced exorcism. He would shake his fist, talk loudly at the room and say vehemently for them to go away. I could feel the energy do the very opposite - not to be quelled, but to boil. I actually grew quite frightened at this time and cautioned him, "Do you really know what you are doing?"

It later became evident that he did not. But when he left for home that night, I did not know this.

When he departed, I was amazed at the transformation. The place felt so amazingly pure and devoid of negative energies! I thought perhaps his exorcism had worked. My room felt great and there was no cold air. Nothing was hanging over me like a wet dank blanket. I felt freer then than I had in months. I said to myself, "It must have worked!"

My friend told me the next day that he had returned to his parents' house where he lived and went to bed for the evening. He was awoken in the middle of the night by a sound coming from his stereo. How and why would the stereo come on by itself? Then, as he tuned his ears to listen, the dials started spinning through the channels by themselves. He later told me chills ran up his spine. He did not know what was doing this but it couldn't have been any coincidence that he had just been to my house and attempted to exorcise ghosts.

Worse yet, when he lay in bed, virtually frightened into immobility, his closet interior came crashing down. The entire wardrobe was yanked to the floor with such a smash that his parents came running down the stairs.

They frantically asked him what was going on. All he could say is that he had just come from my house and tried to exorcize some poltergeists. You can imagine their concern.

In short, outside of school, he was no longer allowed to see me.

So what happened to that ghost that dwelled in my room? It returned very shortly and the pestering continued. I eventually moved in with a nice family and it followed me there too. It took awhile, but as I grew more positive it's hold over me weakened. It eventually disappeared altogether.