Category: Mythical Creatures

A cryptid, as defined by Merriam-Webster, is an animal, such as the Sasquatch or Loch Ness Monster, that has been claimed to exist but never actually proven to exist; a creature known only from folklore or legend, the existence of which is not proven by scientific observation. Contrary to popular belief, cryptids don’t have to be supernatural, mythical or even all that strange—though many popular creatures acquire these characteristics as their legends grow.

Why bring this up on a page of witchcraft? Because while some creatures are actually mythological beasts or magical, a cryptid is technically, by definition, an unproven folklore creature. Many of these do not have anything to do with witchcraft and that is why I wanted to define them here. Cryptids are not the same as familiars, spirit animals, guides, but can be mythological creatures and folklore. It is another way to classify creatures, one of which I do not use very often. While I enjoy the stories, I cannot say I actually believe in any of them as opposed to some mythical creatures and paranormal creatures that I absolutely believe in and have even encountered myself.

Cryptids, which are animals that cryptozoologists believe may exist somewhere in the wild, are not believed to exist by mainstream science. Cryptozoology is classified as a pseudoscience, which primarily looks at anecdotal stories, and other claims rejected by the scientific community. While biologists regularly identify new species following established scientific methodology, cryptozoologists focus on entities mentioned in the folklore record and rumor.

Entities that may be considered cryptids by cryptozoologists include Bigfoot, Yeti, the chupacabra, the Jersey Devil, the Loch Ness Monster, and the Mokele-mbembe. Some noted parallels in cryptozoology and other pseudosciences are ghost hunting and UFOology, and highlighted uncritical media propagation of cryptozoologist claims.

Although Cryptozoology is not considered a real science, it is based on the sciences of Zoology and Paleontology. Many Cryptids probably don’t exist, but there is a high possibility that others do. In fact, National Geographic proved that Hogzilla and the Congo Elephants, two Cryptids thought to be hoaxes or not real, did exist. If more Cryptids do exist, there are scientific evolutionary roots on to how these creatures possibly evolved.

There are a few different ways to classify a Cryptid:

Unconfirmed – Cryptids whose existence is alleged but not demonstrated.

Discredited; (explanation) – Cryptids that have a body of evidence against their existence.

Proposed; (animal name) – Cryptids with an alternative explanation accepted by the general scientific community.

Extinct – Animals that are generally believed to be extinct, but which cryptozoologists believe may have an extant relict population.

Confirmed (animal name or cause) – Animals once classified as cryptids but whose existence has now been confirmed.

Hoax – Cryptids once thought to be real but later conclusively proven to be hoaxes.

Former – Cryptids that with findings, have been proved to be living and real, and known as animals or plants (etc.)

There is even a quiz! What cryptid are you?

Although I do feel a certain way about my results……. 😒

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Familiar: No
Spirit Animal: Yes
Spirit Guide: No
Totem: No
Mythical: Yes
Supernatural: No

Komainu, also known as Japan’s guardian lion dogs, are noble, holy animals, usually employed as guardians of sacred sites. In Asia, the lion was popularly believed to have the power to repel evil, and for this reason it was habitually used to guard gates and doors. In Japan, it too ended up being installed at the entrance of shrines and temples. Komainu are a ubiquitous symbol at holy sites all across the country. Often called lion-dogs in English, they are statue pairs of lion-like creatures either guarding the entrance or the honden, or inner shrine of many Japanese Shinto shrines or kept inside the inner shrine itself, where they are not visible to the public. They can range in size from a small dog to the size of a lion. The first type, born during the Edo period, is called sandō komainu (‘visiting road Komainu’), the second and much older type jinnai komainu (‘shrine inside komainu’). They can sometimes be found also at Buddhist temples, nobility residences or even private homes.

Meant to ward off evil spirits, modern komainu statues usually are almost identical, but one has the mouth open, the other closed. This is a very common characteristic in religious statue pairs at both temples and shrines. The pattern is Buddhist in origin and has a symbolic meaning: The open mouth is pronouncing the first letter of the Sanskrit alphabet, which is pronounced “a”, while the closed one is uttering the last letter, which is pronounced “um”, to represent the beginning and the end of all things. Together they form the sound “Om”, a mystical syllable which symbolizes the beginning, middle, and end of all things, sacred in several religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Some komainu have large horns like a unicorn on their heads. However, many are hornless.

Komainu strongly resemble Chinese guardian lions and, in fact, originate from Tang dynasty China. The Chinese guardian lions are believed to have been influenced by Asiatic lion pelts and lion depictions introduced through trade from either the Middle East or India, countries where the lion existed and was a symbol of strength.

Komainu translates as “Korean Dog”- with Koma being the name for the ancient Korean kingdom of Koguryo. Some of the earliest examples of komainu are found at a shrine in Izumo, a region that has very strong ties with the Korean peninsula. In China these dogs are called shishi, which means “stone lion.” This name is often used in Japan as well, though it only refers to the one with its mouth open. The other one, and the two of them collectively, are always referred to as komainu. Originally they served to protect the sacred buildings from evil and defilements. After the 9^th century they were used for ornamental purposes on ceremonial occasions at the Imperial Court.

During the Nara period (710–794), as in the rest of Asia, the pair always consisted of two lions. Used only indoors until the 14th century, they were made mainly of wood. During the Heian period (794–1185), for example, wooden or metal pairs were employed as weights and door-stops, while at the Imperial Palace they were used to support screens or folding screens.

During the early Heian period (9^th century), is when the tradition changed and the two statues started to be different and be called differently. One had its mouth open and was called shishi (‘lion’) because, as before, it resembled that animal. The other had its mouth closed, looked rather like a dog, was called komainu, or “Goguryeo dog”, and sometimes had a single horn on its head. Gradually the animals returned to be identical, but for their mouths, and ended up being called both komainu.

Komainu are fierce and noble beasts. Ubiquitous as they are now at shrines, Komainu have been used outdoors only since the 14th century, the vast majority being made during the late Edo Period. Until then, most komainu were made of wood and were kept undercover or indoors. Examples of these can sometimes be seen on the porch of the honden (inner sanctuary), at the back of the heiden (offerings hall), or paired with zuijin, another kind of shrine guardian, in a zuijinmon (guardian gate). As a protection against exposure to Japan’s rainy weather, the komainu started being carved in stone. The shisu, the stone animals that in Okinawa guard the gates or the roofs of houses, are close relatives of the shishi and the komainu, objects whose origin, function and symbolic meaning they share.

Starting from the Edo period (1603–1868) other animals have been used instead of lions or dogs, among others wild boars, tigers, dragons and foxes. The most frequent variant of the komainu theme is the fox, guardian of shrines dedicated to kami Inari. There are about 30 thousand Inari shrines in Japan, and the entrance of each is guarded by a pair of fox statues. Often one, and sometimes both, has a sūtra roll, a key or a jewel in its mouth (sūtras are Buddhist texts, a fact which attests to the Buddhist origins of the Inari cult). The statues do not symbolize the animals’ proverbial malice, but the magic powers they are believed to possess. Sometimes the guardians are painted, and in that case they are always white. White foxes are messengers of the kami, who is sometimes himself believed to be, and portrayed as, a fox.

Danger Level: Safe

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Mythical: Yes
Supernatural: No

Shisa dogs are a traditional Ryukyuan cultural artifact and decoration derived from Ancient Chinese guardian lions, often seen in similar pairs, resembling a cross between a lion and a dog from Okinawan mythology. They stand watch and protect people from evil spirits. Shisa are wards, believed to protect from some evils. A cross between a dog and a lion, these fanged beasts are actually considered friendly and comforting. Shisa are a very common feature and distinctive trait of the culture of the Okinawa islands, and it is simply impossible to ignore them when staying on the islands.

Shisa, also known as shi-shi(“lion”) in the local language, are found everywhere in Okinawa. Because they are believed to provide protection and to ward off evil spirits, they often sit outside or on the roof of many buildings in the archipelago, including those of private houses, large stores, corporate buildings, hospitals, and even schools. These figures were originally used as guardians to residences and shrines.

People place pairs of shisa on their rooftops or flanking the gates to their houses, with the left shisa traditionally having a closed mouth, the right one an open mouth. The open mouth shisa traditionally wards off evil spirits, and the closed mouth shisa keeps good spirits in. Some Okinawans believe the female has her mouth closed to “keep in the good”, while the male has his mouth open to “scare away the bad”. Some Shisa are featured with one paw laid upon a golden sphere supposed to symbolize good fortune, a concentration of goodness, wealth and bountiful crops.

Shisa dogs are not to be confused with Koma-inu lion dogs which you can sometimes see outside temples all over Japan, especially around tori in Shinto shrines. In mainland Japan, there is a very similar looking lion dog figure called koma-inu (Korean dog) which were adopted from Korea, and are considered cousins of shisa. Although often indistinguishable, koma-inu are usually reserved for religious structures, whereas shisa can be found anywhere. They are similar and both are a variation of the guardian lions from China. From the Edo period, they started to be called “guardian dogs” on mainland Japan.

It is believed that Shisa were imported from China into the archipelago around the 14^th or 15^th century. Several stories recount the manner in which they arrived on the island with varying degrees of fantasy. The main one, however, seems to originate from Madanbashi, a village south of Naha. Legend tells that when a Chinese emissary returned from a voyage to the court at Shuri Castle, he brought a gift for the king of the Ryukyu archipelago, a necklace decorated with a figurine of a shisa. The king found it charming and wore it underneath his clothes. At the Naha Port bay, the village of Madanbashi was often terrorized by a sea dragon who ate the villagers and destroyed their property. Although the villagers tried to fight back, the strength of the beast was too strong for them to resist. They were constantly losing family members and friends, and were beginning to lose hope that they would ever be safe.

One day, the king was visiting the village, and one of these attacks happened; all the people ran and hid. The local noro, or village priestess, had been told in a dream to instruct the king when he visited to stand on the beach and lift up his figurine towards the dragon. As the dragon was wreaking havoc, the nororemembered her dream from the night before. She had been told to have the king “raise his necklace to the heavens”. At first, she had not understood the vision, but now she knew what to do; she sent a boy, Chiga, to tell him the message. 

He faced the monster with the figurine held high, and immediately a giant roar sounded all through the village, a roar so deep and powerful that it even shook the dragon as the shisa came to life. A massive boulder then fell from heaven and crushed the dragon’s tail, so that he couldn’t move, and eventually died. This boulder and the dragon’s body became covered with plants and surrounded by trees, and can still be seen today as the Gana-mui Forest near Naha Ohashi bridge. The townspeople then built a large stone shisa to protect it from the dragon’s spirit and other threats. To this day, the inhabitants of Madanbashi continue to gather on the 15th of August to offer prayers and gifts (mainly fruits) to the Iri-nu statue, protector of the forest.

The oldest and largest shisa statue in all of Okinawa, the Stone Lion of Tomori, was erected in 1689 and is 5 ½ feet by 4 ½ feet large. According to the village archives, Tomori had long suffered from repeated fires and consulted with the local priest on how to protect themselves. He told them the nearby Mount Yaese was a volcano and the source of their problems. If the villagers placed a “lion-shaped” object facing the mountain, they would no longer have to worry. They did as he instructed, and from then on, there were no more fires. However, the worst was not yet over.

In 1945, the Battle of Okinawa ravaged the island with ¼ of the Okinawan population losing their lives. But somehow, the stone lion prevailed and the bullet holes from the battle are still visible on the statue. There is even an iconic photo from that time with soldiers seeking refuge behind the statue. In 1974, the Tomori Lion was declared a prefectural cultural asset and an important piece of folk culture. Locals still pray to the statue to ask for protection, and tourists often visit to pay their respect, as well as to remember the long history it has witnessed.

April 3rd is shisa-no-hi or Shisa Day. In Japanese shi means four, san means three, and sound similar to shisa when combined together. Japan loves word puns and they found a way to work it into a cultural celebration.

Danger Level: Safe

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Mythical: Yes
Supernatural: No

Chinese guardian lions, or imperial guardian lions, commonly called stone lions in China and sometimes called a foo dog in the West, are symbolic sculptures of the Asiatic lion. The most common term for the lions in China is shi, meaning lion, or shishi (pronounced she-see). They are a traditional Chinese architectural ornament protection symbols of feng shui that typically “guard” the entranceways to buildings and homes. Typically made of stone, they are also known as stone lions or shishi. They are known in colloquial English as lion dogs or foo dogs / fu dogs. The concept, which originated and became popular in Chinese Buddhism, features a pair of highly stylized lions—often one male with an embroidered ball (xiù qiú), sometimes carved in a geometric pattern, and one female with a cub representing nurturing and the cycle of life—which had mythic powerful protective benefits including protecting the building from harmful spiritual influences and harmful people that might be a threat.

Symbolically, the female lion protects those dwelling inside (the living soul within), while the male guards the structure (the external material elements). Sometimes the female has her mouth closed, and the male open. This symbolizes the enunciation of the sacred word “om”. However, Japanese adaptations state that the male is inhaling, representing life, while the female exhales, representing death. Other styles have both lions with a single large pearl in each of their partially opened mouths to represent the sacred breath. The pearl is carved so that it can roll about in the lion’s mouth but sized just large enough so that it can never be removed.

These Chinese guardian lions were found standing sentry in imperial Chinese palaces, government offices, temples, homes of government officials and the wealthy, and imperial tombs, the lions subsequently spread to other parts of Asia including Japan, Korea, Philippines, Tibet, Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Cambodia, Laos, and Malaysia. Traditionally, when they were placed in front of the homes of high-ranking officials, the number of curls on a lion’s head denoted the rank of the official. The more curls, the higher the rank. According to feng shui, correct placement of the lions is important to ensure their beneficial effect. When looking at the entrance from outside the building, facing the lions, the male lion with the ball is on the right, and the female with the cub is on the left. There are pairs of stone lions guarding entrances all over the Forbidden City, demonstrating the profound importance of this Chinese cultural icon.

The guardian lion pair should be placed according to tradition and the principles of Feng Shui. To ensure the favorable effects of the lions, they must be installed correctly.

• They must always be in a pair to ensure harmony.
• They need to be on pedestals or bases so as to improve their view of the spiritual terrain.
• They must be placed on either side of the entrance to keep it in the harmonious area between the two lions.
• The building must be at the backs of the lion pair so they can see the mischievous spirits approaching.
• They each have their own side in the pair to correspond to principles of Yin and Yang. When facing the entrance from the outside, the male goes on the outward, active side on the right. The female goes on the inward, steadying hand, the left side.
• If the lion pair is to be displayed inside, they must remain together on the same table or shelf, guarding the same room.

If the traditions for proper placement aren’t followed correctly, the house can become vulnerable to bad luck, dishonor or evil spirits.

This ability to drive away negative spirits and energy explains the original placement of these statues at the entrance to Buddhist temples. From there the practice spread to palaces, important residences and mausoleums. Guardian lions are blessed with perception, the ability to discern good and bad intentions. They are prized as loyal but fierce guardians in the spirit world.

The stone lion can repress the impulse to thievery, minimize accidents and confuse those with bad intentions to bring luck and money, balancing Feng Shui harmony. These traits make them prized additions for businesses to promote prosperity. A pair of lions is often seen guarding hotels, restaurants, banks and factories, where their job is to drive away mischief and attract satisfied customers or workers into the business.

They are also used in other artistic contexts, for example on door-knockers, and in pottery. Pairs of guardian lion statues are still common and symbolic elements at the entrances to restaurants, hotels, supermarkets and other structures, with one sitting on each side of the entrance of many Asiatic establishes all over the world. According to Buddhist legend, preaching the truth of the Dharma is akin to “roaring like a lion,” which will eventually silence all other voices. Originally introduced to Han China as the protector of dharma, these lions have been found in religious art as early as 208 BC. Lions seemed appropriately regal beasts to guard the emperor’s gates and have been used as such since. There are various styles of guardian lions reflecting influences from different time periods, imperial dynasties, and regions of China. These styles vary in their artistic detail and adornment as well as in the depiction of the lions from fierce to serene.

In Chinese they are traditionally called simply shi, meaning lion and were already popularly depicted as guardian figures by the sixth century AD. Today the guardian lions are more usually specified by reference to the medium or material, for example: Stone lion (Shíshī): for a stone sculpture, Bronze lion (Tóngshī): for a bronze sculpture, The Lion of Buddha (Foshi): with the word “Fo” relating closely to Buddha himself, or Auspicious lion (Ruìshī): referring to the Tibetan Snow Lion or good fortune.

As might be expected, over hundreds of years of political and military domination, Imperial China had a profound impact on the cultures of surrounding civilizations from the central steppes of Asia to the eastern coast and the Southeast. Because of their original purpose in front of Buddhist temples, the lions spread to other temples in the region, including Tibet, Burma, Korea, Laos, Cambodia, Singapore, Vietnam and Thailand. Each culture has its own name for the stone lion.

• In Japan: the lion figures are known as Shishi or Komainu (lion dogs) In Okinawa: known as Shisa
• In Korea: known as Haetae
• In Myanmar and Laos: known as Chinthe and gave their name to the World War II Chindit soldiers
• In Cambodia: known as Singha or Sing
• In Sri Lanka: known as Singha
• In Thailand: known as Singha or s̄ingh̄̒
• In Tibet: known as a Snow Lion or Gangs-seng-ge
• In Vietnam: known as Sư tử đá

Japan adopted them from Korea and referred to them as “Korean Dogs” (Komainu)  due to their transmission from China through Korea and finally into Japan. The Japanese then introduced them to Western cultures, who altered the name to “foo dogs” or “fu dogs.” Although, the words translate to “Buddha” and “prosperity,” the Chinese rarely use these prefixes in conjunction with these guardian symbols. In China it’s well understood that the sculptures are lions and they are never referred to as “dogs”.  It may also be due to the misidentification of the guardian lion figures as representing certain Chinese dog breeds such as the Chow Chow or Pekingese.

The lions are traditionally carved from decorative stone, such as marble and granite or cast in bronze or iron. Because of the high cost of these materials and the labor required to produce them, private use of guardian lions was traditionally reserved for elite citizens like generals, heroes, scholars, chi masters and the wealthy. Indeed, a traditional symbol of a family’s wealth or social status was the placement of guardian lions in front of the family home. However, in modern times less expensive lions, mass-produced in concrete and resin, have become available and their use is therefore no longer restricted to the elite.

Danger Level: Safe

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It’s always something in my house. Things moving, being broken, put in spots impossible for cats to reach or place, etc. Here is a list of the most recent things that have been happening in my home! I am definitely a believer!

Jul2021: A friend of mine came over for breakfast which she does about once a month. This isn’t her first experience with the paranormal in my house. She was the one who had seen my Parisian Masquerade mask moving on the wall before too. This time she saw the little black cat ghost multiple times around her feet while we were eating and it kept startling her. She kept thinking it was Constantine but when she looked, it was far too thin and small and she only caught glances. Not only that, but it kept pressing its nose against her ankle and then doing one rub against the leg after. All of her leg hairs were standing on end and then as soon as it stopped touching her, they calmed down again. A few minutes later it would happen again. That was probably the jumpiest breakfast she had ever attended because it kept startling her. This went on for about 2 hours straight. I never saw the kitty but I also was on the other side of the table and wasn’t looking. I named him Fluffy Frank a while ago. I see him randomly throughout my house a couple times a month. My friend is not so used to it. It for sure wasn’t my boys either as Constantine was passed out in the guest bedroom at the time, Charlemagne was sleeping on the kitchen cabinets, and Nikolai Romanov was basking in the sun by the glass doors. Constantine is my only black cat mini panther so Fluffy Frank it is!

August 2021: Another friend of mine, I call Mewmew, came over for tea and Fluffy Frank kept pressing against her leg as well. She also kept looking down to see what was pressing against her leg. This time it wasn’t her ankle like my other friend but the back of her calf. It is a very solid feeling when Fluffy Frank presses into you even though nothing is there. She kept startling and was like WHAT IS PRESSING A COLD NOSE INTO MY LEG? I just kind of trailed off “Ummmm….. ghost cat probably…..” She kind of just gave me a horrified look. I guess I forgot to mention there was a ghost cat in my house to her. Just like my other friend, Mewmew kept looking down thinking on of the boys was nuzzling her for attention. Again, none of the boys were nearby and eventually, Charlie wandered over and actually did rub against her leg. She was like “OK THIS ONE IS SOLID!” Unlike the 2 hours of before, this one only went on for about 20 minutes before Fluffy Frank stopped picking on her nerves.

Oct2021: I bought a super cool painted eye for the ambiance of my home and placed it in a teacup I don’t use very often. Well, Frank paid me another visit. I was walking around the dining room and kitchen cleaning when I saw Charlie on the table and staring unblinkingly at towards some of my knickknacks on the buffet in my dining room. It had been facing forward as I originally placed it. After I came out of the kitchen and saw Charlie staring without movement, I noticed it was now facing away in a different direction. I turned it back and went about my cleaning again. I’m kind of used to random movement of usually unmoving objects in my home at this point.

Nov2021: Our little ghostly friend was active again! All kitties and myself were in the dining room relaxing and drinking tea. (Only I was drinking tea). 2 of the boys were sunbathing by the windows. I heard a loud sound in the guest bedroom and ran in there to make sure everything was ok. I found books pulled out and on the floor again. As per usual, there were no cats in sight and they were all accounted for around me when it happened. It opened on a really old German dictionary I own from the 1800s. The pages it landed on had the words progress and projection. I take it that either I am making progress (yay!) or the ghost is trying to project (yay?). The longest definition on the open pages was projection. It was also very interesting to me that 2 other books had been pulled out and pushed to the left so that the dictionary could come out.

Dec2021: I saw a shadow man multiple times throughout December. I even saw him about 3 times in one night one time. All 3 kitties were staring at the doorway where I kept seeing him. He would keep passing up and down the hallway going from the guest bedroom to the living room. The creepy thing is when you are in bed with 3 kitty babies and you see a shadow man walking past your room multiple times a night. I never did find out what he wanted but it looked like Frank. Since Frank has never hurt me or the boys, I just let him do his thing and kept on reading. To be honest, he never even looked at me as he was walking by. He just kept walking like he had a task in mind. I really feel like my guest room and living room/dining area are the spots that are specifically haunted with the amount of action that happens there…..

Feb2022: I have a sun lamp at work because my office is extremely dark without a window. Normally I don’t mind because I was probably a little mouse in a past life but sometimes, you just need some good rich light! For that reason, I got a Vitamin D simulating sun lamp. It is really helpful on days when I am feeling down and mood is just off. Well, one day I walked in and all of a sudden, it turned on without me touching and it and basically started strobing. That was fun. Bring your ghost to work day? This has happened twice now.

Mar2022: My friend who has already dealt with a moving Parisian Masquerade mask and a cold ghost cat nose on her ankle, was leaving my house after our monthly, and surprisingly unghostly, breakfast. She turned right back around just after I closed the door, knocked, and told me my ghosts weren’t allowed to come home with her. As it turns out, as she was walking to her car that was COMPLETELY TURNED OFF with her key in her pocket, both front windows of her car went down at the same time right as she approached the vehicle. No power to the vehicle and yet half the windows decided to lower as she approached. I just laughed and told the ghosts to get back in the house and leaver her alone. It seems to have worked because the hauntings keep happening around me and my home and nothing else has happened around her outside of my home.

Mar/Apr2022: I saw Fluffy Frank multiple times walking through the house for about 3weeks and while I was painting my guest bedroom a lovely shade of royal blue. I guess the changes I’ve been making to the home were causing him to be more active? Hopefully he likes them! I sure do!

Apr2022: I had taken some time to visit my mother in North Carolina and we did a mother daughter road trip to Pennsylvania. Upon returning to NC, I put my suitcase in what used to be my room and is now the guest bedroom. The whole family was downstairs for about half an hour and we were all enjoying good conversation and a cup of ice water after our long car ride when all of a sudden we heard a crash upstairs. It turns out that a photo album my mother had been working on before we left for the road trip had flown sideways out of the bookshelf it had been sitting in.

May2022: The latest has been this first week of May when I was sleeping with the boys and I heard a ceramic dish get dragged across the ktichen floor for about 4 or 5 seconds. It is a very distinct sound because I place the dish down a few times every day. Nikolai gets fresh chicken because he has a sensitive tummy and so I shred it and put it in the ceramic dish just for him. When I heard the noise, I jerked up and I knew what the sound was. The first thing I did was check to see where the boys were and all 3 of them were snuggled in bed with me. 2 of them had perked their head up at the sound as well. I got out of bed to check and make sure the sound was what I thought it was and I was right. The dish had been moved a few tiles over where I would not have put it as it would be a tripping hazard there. Since it was empty, I am going to assume a ghostly someone wanted me to fill it for the boys. I did and went back to bed. Niku munched for a few minutes before he came back and joined me for a few more hours of sleep.

That about brings us up to date for weird paranormal incidents happening in my house! For now…. I am sure they will continue to happen and I will update you as they occur! But this is seriously why I believe in ghosts. I have never had this stuff happen to me when I was growing up and ever since Arizona, it has either attached to me or to something I own. When I got to Texas, Fluffy Frank joined the household next. I smudge regularly, cleanse my altar space, bless my home, put up protection amulets, all the bells and whistles. They still haven’t left. As I said previously, as long as nothing violent happens and no one is hurt, I won’t complain. They can hang here (even if they don’t pay rent or help with chores…. loafers….). I’m just used to it at this point.

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Has anything spooky ever happened to you? I would love to hear about it! Leave a comment below!

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From our altar to yours, with love from the sea,

Familiar: yes
Spirit Animal: Yes
Spirit Guide: yes
Totem: Yes
Mythical: No
Supernatural: Yes

Lithe and silent, the cat comes and goes of its own accord, its natural hunting instincts often emerging suddenly and unexpectedly from a veneer of domestication. It has contradictory nature, in which an appreciation of human affection is combined with a strong independence. Humans tend to either like or dislike members of the cat family. Unfortunately, much of the dislike springs form propaganda put out in campaigns by monotheistic religions over many centuries in an attempt to dissociate people from goddess worship.

Cats are considered good fortune in many cultures and a cat in the home is good for both the feline and human inhabitants. The cat was an animal of the goddess. Feline deities are often associated with magic, beauty, and fertility, though each should be greeted and met with on her own merits and strengths. The cat, especially the black cat, along with the owl, bat, and wolf, were the animals most commonly associated with not only goddesses, but witches and magic, which become even more extreme during the witch frenzies of the middle ages.

Cats were first domesticated by the Egyptians and were immediately accepted into the temples and households, where they were pampered and spoiled. They, in return, guarded granaries from rodents and kept the households free of snakes. The ancestors of the domestic cat were probably the African wild cat and/or the Kaffir cat. Through Egyptian influence, domesticated cats were dispersed around the Mediterranean area. Egyptians gave the cat the name mau after the sound it makes. A black cat was especially lucky and was the emblem used by physicians to advertise their services.

Cats were sacred to Bast/Bastet, Pasht, Sekhmet, and a number of other cat goddesses. Cats came to be considered sacred animals and this veneration was well established by at least 1570 BC and by 950BC was found in all of Egypt. Praised for controlling vermin and its ability to kill mice, rats, and snakes such as cobras, the domesticated cat became a symbol of grace and poise. Bastet represented the gentler aspects of the cat while Pasht signified the more aggressive aspects. Bast/Bastet  and Pasht were said to have had the body of a woman and the head of a cat. Since the Egyptians believed that both these deities had nine lives, they also believed that all cats did as well.

In Germany and some other Spanish speaking countries, cats are believed to have 7 lives while in more Arabic countries and Turkey, cats are said to only have 6 lives.

The temple cats of Bastet, upon death, were mummified and buried with great ceremony in special cat cemeteries with elaborate funerary rites. Even cats of the common people were mourned upon their deaths and the family shaved their eyebrows as a symbol of grief. The Ancient Egyptian cult of the cat was so strong that the punishment for killing a cat was the death penalty.

In Celtic traditions, cats were associated with Underworld powers, the dead, and prophecy. Often they were portrayed as evil creatures but this may have been because the wild cats in Celtic countries were untamed. Irish legends tell of a cat called Little Cat, who was a guardian of treasure. In Wales, Great Cat was a powerful being born of Henwen, an enchanted sow. In parts of Yorkshire, the wives of fisherman keep black cats at home to ensure their husbands’ safety at sea. In Southern England, a black cat crossing the path of a bride as she leaves the church is said to grant a fortunate marriage. A sneezing cat is said to bring good luck to a bride, as well as being a sign of rain.

In Norse mythology, Freya, queen of the Valkyries and goddess of fertility, drove a chariot pulled by 2 cats. Cats were harbingers of coming prosperity and good fortune. A cat of 3 colors is extremely lucky and will keep a house from harm while a smutty nosed cat will bring wealth to its companions. After the people converted to Christianity, Freya became a witch and her cats became black horses possessed by the devil. The new legend said that after seven years, the cat-horses earned the right to become witches disguised as black cats. This rewrite of the Norse goddess story may be the origin of the unlucky black cat superstition. Those taught to fear the devil would consider black cats to be his evil helpers.

Witch Tip: Stroking a cat’s tail nine times grants good luck in love.

The domestic cat is the quintessential witch’s familiar in Western traditions. Early Christians made the cat a symbol of fertility, but with the spread of the faith through the Roman Empire, pagan deities, such as the goddess of liberty whose cat represented a lack of restraint, were branded as demons. Cats became the spawn of Satan, and the “familiars” of witches. Cats are independent and cannot be controlled, which gives them an air of mystery that lends credence to their reputation as good familiars for witches. Familiars are creatures, usually animals, that serve as both helper and companion to someone in the work of magic.

In Medieval Europe, witches were believed to ride cats to sabbats, and to suckle them with a third nipple. Black cats especially were supposed to be willing helpers of witches, and used their supernatural knowledge to participate in nightly ceremonies that conjured up the Evil One. Cats were said to hold the spirit of the witch they belong to and will protect them against evil. The light reflective eyes of the cat, which are an adaptation to aid its night vision, were interpreted as the flaming eyes of the devil. It is said that cats will suck away the breath of children, invalids, and sleeping people, leaving them weak or even killing them. This erroneous superstition developed during the witch frenzy of the middle ages.

So pervasive were the beliefs among Protestants during the 17^th century witch crazed years that thousands of cats were burned alive inside wooden effigies of the Pope, adding the annihilation of a demon spirit to the symbolic destruction of Catholicism. In France, during the 17^th and 18^th centuries, cat burnings were in vogue. It was exactly like it sounds: burning a sack of cats for good luck. Sometimes there were not enough cats and so a fox was added. It was considered extremely tasteful entertainment as cats were considered symbols of witchcraft.

Cats are seen as evil shape shifters in China and a curse was placed on the cat for not having wept at the death of the Buddha. Chinese legend says that the cat was a Yin animal connected with evil, the night, and shape shifting. They believed that the appearance of a strange cat foreshadowed a change in fortune and that a black cat meant sickness or misfortune.

In Japan, however, the cat was considered to be a positive powered animal, a creature symbolizing peace and transformation. Cats were popular with Japanese sailors, for they said that the animals had power over the dead and kept away evil spirits that dwelt in the ocean. Although some of their legends tell how the cat was full of trickery and sometimes associated with ghosts, the Japanese still hold the animal in high esteem.

Siamese cats were traditional guardians of temples and palaces in Thailand. Siamese were said to have crossed eyes and a kinked tail because it concentrated so hard on the objects it was guarding, and wrapped its tail around them for protection.

cats are both tame and wild, symbolizing the harnessing of natural powers through magic. Cats’ intense gaze, silent movements, and seemingly psychic perceptions have long inspired human spirituality. Indeed, many modern witches share their homes with feline companions and familiars. Cats make excellent spirit guides. They are independent and self assured, while always searching for the hidden with their sense of curiosity. And while they can be unpredictable, they are still very intelligent.

In 9 lifetimes, you will never know as much about your cat as your cat knows about you…. But you will always be lucky if you know how to make friends with strange cats.

Mysteries will unfold in life if a cat has come around. They are observant and patient creatures and very analytically capable. Cats show how to clarify perceptions which allows new ideas to manifest, encourages mental and emotional agility due to their resilient behavior, aids in being resourceful, and teaches courage and confidence.

Many housecats like to hang out with their people in rituals for the sake of sheer curiosity and companionship. Some will also lend their energies to magical workings and may alert their owners of the presence of spirits. Cats combine sensuality and sensibility, independence and resourcefulness. They teach us to balance the physical world with a deep awareness of nature and spirit.

Witch Tip: A bit of shed cat fur can be added to a spell for grace, peacefulness, or resourcefulness.

Do you need to be more independent? Are you using your resources to the best of your ability? Is it time to start a new project? Stop over analyzing everything. Cats will show how to continue the process of opening your intuition for soul growth. Follow your instincts when it comes to conforming and trust in your own abilities. You are very capable of doing anything you set your mind to.

Cats are magical protectors, especially when faced with a confrontational situation. They have skill in Knowing when to fight your way out of a bad situation and when to retreat. Unlike some other animals, cats are not afraid of unseen spirit beings.

Cats are a very appealing totem animal. Cats are incredibly psychic and working with feline energy will help to develop your intuition. The 19^th century English made sure their children played with cats to help develop their clairvoyant capabilities. There has long been a belief that cats have strong mediumistic powers, an attribute that has been associated with the beauty of their eyes. Yet it can also be suggested that their domestication has allowed them the luxury of time to develop their natural psychic powers.

House cats are often drawn to spiritual energy, especially when that energy is being used for healing or in ceremony. Cats purr at a vibration within a range of 20-140hz which are medically therapeutic for many diseases. Petting a purring cat calms down and lowers stress while cat owners have 40% less risk of heart attacks. The vibrations have been found to be helpful for healing tendons and muscles, as well as infections and swelling. Frequencies of 25 and 50hz are the best and 100 and 200hz the second best frequencies for promoting bone strength. Their purrs have been found to lower blood pressure. It can be lowered as well just by interacting with the cat. A cat’s purr has also been noted to lowering dysponea symptoms. Their purr is a healing vibration that is especially effective when they lie on the part of you that is hurting. The underlying bond that connects a cat to a witch, or to a healing need, is love, and Cat’s journey in the Cauldron is about self love.

Not every cat is a familiar but we can learn many things from every kitty. Their famous catnaps remind us to rest, while their blend of independence and socialization models a good balance between me time and us time.

Luck and Black Cats

Unfortunately, black cats really do have bad luck when it comes to getting adopted. 13% of Americans are superstitious of black cats crossing their path. 26.1% said color was important when adopting a new cat.

In the Middle Ages, black cats were often portrayed as the familiars of witches, which is likely to be the origin of the distrust with which they are regarded today. Medieval Pope Gregory IX considered cats to be the incarnation of Satan, leading to a mass killing of cats. This caused the rat population to swell, which quickened the spread of the Bubonic Plague, also known as the ‘Black Death’. Many religious communities continue to reject and associate them with the devil and witchcraft. An old book from 1584 called “beware the Cat” gives warning that black cats are witches in disguise and that killing a cat does not necessarily mean killing the witch, for a witch can take on the body of a cat nine times. Many countries consider it a bad sign if a black cat crosses your path because it means you have been noticed by the devil.

In England, however, giving a bride a black cat is believed to bring her good luck. White cats are actually considered unlucky. According to Scottish lore, a black cat’s appearance at your home leads to great wealth. It was a sign of coming prosperity. In Scotland, the Mother of Witches was called the Mither O’ Mawkins (cats). It was said that the grey blossoms of the pussy willow were sacred to witches because they were the souls of unborn cats.

Viking cats were not your standard Felis Domesticus. They were Skogkatt (Norwegian word meaning ‘forest cat’), a wild breed native to the North. In Norwegian folklore, these cats were sometimes called Huldrekat (huldre are female forest spirits, literally, ‘the hidden folk’). Vikings used to give kittens to new brides as an essential part of a new household. Cats were considered appropriate since they were associated with Freyja, the goddess of love. Cats also kept the mouse population under control which could severely affect the family food storages during the winter months.

In an effort to get people to adopt black cats, one Nevada shelter put on an “Adopt your own Mini Panther” campaign. All 18 black cats they had were adopted. Some organizations do not allow adoptions of black cats during the month of September and October for fear of animal cruelty which then lessens their chances of being adopted.

August 17^th is National Black Cat Appreciation Day.

They are not a superstition and do not bring bad luck! They are beautiful, loving, and intelligent creatures who should never be passed up for adoption because of the color of their fur. Black cats steal hearts, not souls.

Danger Level: Safe

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Familiar: No
Spirit Animal: No
Mythical: No
Supernatural: Yes

Yuki-onna (“snow woman”) is a spirit or yokai in Japanese folklore. She may also go by such names as yuki-hoe (“snow daughter”), yuki-onago (“snow girl”), yukijorō (“snow woman”), yuki anesa (“snow sis'”), and yuki-onba(“snow granny” or “snow nanny”). They often live in snowy mountains or areas that receive lots of snow yearly.

Yuki-onna are a type of ice/snow elemental spirit that prey on travelers lost in the heavy snowstorms that blanket the Japanese Alps in winter. They appear on snowy nights and possess an otherworldly beauty with long black hair, dark piercing eyes, tall, having pale white or blue tinged skin, and blue lips. Their skin is ageless and as white as snow, but their bodies are as cold as ice. A mere touch is enough to give a human a deep, unshakable chill.

They feed on life force, sucking it from human’s mouths with an icy breath that freezes their victims solid. Her inhumanly pale or even transparent skin makes her blend into the snowy landscape. She often wears a white kimono, but other legends describe her as nude, with only her face and hair standing out against the snow. Despite her inhuman beauty, her eyes can strike terror into mortals. She floats across the snow, leaving no footprints (in fact, some tales say she has no feet, a feature of many Japanese ghosts), and she can transform into a cloud of mist or snow if threatened.

There are various legends about the Yuki-onna’s true identity, such as saying that the yuki-onna is a snow spirit or the spirit of a woman who fell over and perished in the snow. In a setsuwa of the Oguni region of Yamagata Prefecture, a Yuki-jorō (Yuki-onna) was originally a princess of the moon world and in order to leave a boring lifestyle came down to earth together with snow but was unable to go back to the moon and so is said to appear on snowy moonlit nights. She is at the same time beautiful and serene, yet ruthless in killing unsuspecting mortals. Until the 18th century, she was almost uniformly portrayed as evil. Today, however, stories often color her as more human, emphasizing her ghost-like nature and ephemeral beauty.

The Snow Vampire: This version of Yuki-onna hails from four Japanese provinces; Aomori, Gunma, Niigata, and Miyagi. Here it’s said that Yuki-onna is a dreadful snow vampire, haunting the snowy forests, looking to feed. She lives by sucking the vital energy of human body, which is mentioned as seiki. She is said to extract the seiki first by freezing victims to death and then sucking the seiki through the dead victim’s mouth. Especially in Niigata prefecture, it’s said that Yuki-onna likes the seiki of children, so the mothers are warned over there, not to let their children play on snowy nights near a forest.

In many stories, Yuki-onna appears to travelers trapped in snowstorms and uses her icy breath to leave them as frost-coated corpses. Other legends say she leads them astray so they simply die of exposure. Other times, she manifests holding a child. When a well-intentioned soul takes the “child” from her, they are frozen in place. Parents searching for lost children are particularly susceptible to this tactic. Other legends make Yuki-onna much more aggressive. In these stories, she often invades homes, blowing in the door with a gust of wind to kill residents in their sleep (some legends require her to be invited inside first).

What Yuki-onna is after varies from tale to tale. Sometimes she is simply satisfied to see a victim die. Other times, she is more vampiric, draining her victims’ blood or “life force.” She occasionally takes on a succubus-like manner, preying on weak-willed men to drain or freeze them through sex or a kiss.

Yuki-onna originates from folklores of olden times; in the Muromachi period (approximately 1336 to 1573) Sōgi Shokoku Monogatari by the renga poet Sōgi, there is a statement on how he saw a yuki-onna when he was staying in Echigo Province (now Niigata Prefecture), indicating that the legends already existed in the Muromachi period. In legends from the Ojiya region of Niigata Prefecture, a beautiful woman came to visit a man and became his wife from the woman’s own desire. While the man loved to take long hot baths every night, his wife always refused to bathe. This puzzled him greatly. One particularly cold and snowy night, he insisted that his wife take a bath. Otherwise she would freeze to death in the cold, he said. She protested, but there was no reasoning with the man. Finally she acquiesced. When he went in to check on her a few minutes later, all he found in the tub were half-melted icicles.

In the Aomori and Yamagata Prefectures, there is a similar story about one called the “Shigama-onna.” In the Kaminoyama region of Yamagata, a yuki-onna would come visit an old couple on a snowy night to warm herself by the irori. She was sweet and charming and extremely beautiful. So it was even more of a surprise when, in the middle of the night during a fierce blizzard, she stood up and made to leave the inn. The innkeeper begged her not to go outside, and took her hand to hold her back. It was as cold as ice. Merely touching it sucked all the warmth from the innkeeper’s body. As he tried to keep the girl in the house, her entire body turned into a fine icy mist, and shot up the chimney and out into the night.

Like the snow and winter weather she represents, Yuki-onna has a softer side. Some go so far as to marry humans and live happily together. As supernatural spirits never age, however, their husbands inevitably discover their true identities. This revelation usually ends these happy marriages. She sometimes lets would-be victims go for various reasons. In one popular Yuki-onna legend, for example, she sets a young boy free because of his beauty and age. She makes him promise never to speak of her, but later in life, he tells the story to his wife who reveals herself to be the snow woman. She reviles him for breaking his promise but spares him again, this time out of concern for their children (but if he dares mistreat their children, she will return with no mercy. Luckily for him, he is a loving father).

The term Yuki-otoko (“snow man”) refers to the male version of this ice elemental. Far more rare than the Yuki-onna, they appear less often in traditional Japanese mythology and more often in modern interpretations of the legends.

Yukio (pictured above) comes from a rather delightful Otome game (dating sim) called Soul of Yokai. I played it on my Android but I am pretty sure you can download it on IPhones as well. Yukio is a Yuki-okoko who brings you to the world of the yokai. From there, you interact with him, an Oni (demon), and a Tengu (godly avian human) as your perspective loves. I really enjoyed this game for relaxed playing and a sweet story and now there is even a second season out. 10/10 if you are bored and want to delve a bit more into the world of Japanese yokai with a touch of romance.

Danger Level: Unsafe

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It has only been a few months since the last time I talked about the hauntings that happen pretty frequently in my house but we had more paranormal activity that I thought I would share with you all. I actually forgot about 2 incidents that happened last year that my best friend reminded me of and also to touch on everything that has happened in first 6 months of the year. Since this past December, I have had 11 paranormal/ghostly incidents happen in my home. That makes 11 in less than 7 seven months because June is not over yet. My house is so haunted….. Good times.

July2020: Back in last July, I had a really nice glass humidifier that was sitting in the middle of a table and hasn’t moved since I moved in to my home the year prior. One night it fell at 233am and shattered. The boys were in my room in bed with me so I know it wasn’t them and all it had was a super thin teacup sign I was painting leaning against it that. A few ounces leaning against something that weighed about 2-3 pounds…. And it fell from the center of a table too. Unfortunately, it was completely ruined and I did have to throw it away.

September2020: Sometimes I use bones in magic practice so keep a bunch on hand in tin container with a very secure top. I was cleaning the kitchen and I heard a strange sound of something being knocked across my hardwood floors. I came out to investigate and I found my largest familiar, Niku, playing with one of the chicken bones that I kept in that tin container. I quickly grabbed the bone because I didn’t want him to either choke on it or lose it under some furniture and went to put it away. It turns out the tin container was still very tightly shut with a small offering dish still sitting on top of the lid and the container itself was still inside my closed cabinet…. I’m not really sure how one of the bones managed to get out with the tin and cabinet doors undisturbed.

December2020: In December, I was invited to visit the zoo lights with a girlfriend who works security at the zoo. We got a few perks from her working there and one of them was to meet their 2 resident rhinos! It was an amazing experience and so in honor of it, I got a super cute holiday rhino stuffed toy to commemorate the visit. Said rhino was sitting on my table and the bell around its neck started vibrating and slightly jingling for an entire 3 minutes straight. Nothing was touching it. It was just sitting there on the table from when I had brought it home. I was watching it for a minute just waiting for it to stop because it was kind of weird. I figured maybe I had knocked the table or something. It never stopped so I put my hand on it to stop it and it stopped while my hand was on it and then continued once I took my hand off of it. I managed to get part of it on video. I turned all my music off and just sat there in silence recording as it continued at the exact same pace and tone for about 2 minutes.

February2021: My first experience of the New Year (that I saw/remember) was a another set of books falling off of my book shelf again. One was the Poisoner’s Handbook (a super great read on prohibition and the start of toxicology as a field) as well as one other book that escapes me at the moment. I forgot to take a picture this time. However, once again these were books that were clustered on my shelf which was completely packed and there was no way for them to just fall. I was in the room when they fell so I can safely say there was no kitty nearby. They always seem to fall off of the bottom 2 shelves of my bookcases.

March2021: I have a cat skull on my altar. TWICE during this month, the cat skull not only did a perfect 180 degree turn to face Hekate on my altar, but the rubber band that was holding it closed disappeared. A third time, the skull looked as if it had been disturbed very roughly but it is not in a place where my boys bother. Nothing was disturbed around the cat skill either. I still haven’t found that rubber band to this day.

March2021: I own a super cute wooden sketching figure of a cat that I keep on one of my bookshelves in the guest bedroom. Well one day, I went into my guest bedroom and the cat figure was not only NOT on the bookshelf anymore, it was 8 feet away on the dresser in a different pose.

March2021: I have a very pretty moon lamp that I used to keep on my altar. My altar was pretty messy because I always seem to have so much on it but it isn’t cluttered and falling over. I was hanging with the boys and I heard a sound in my living room. It turns off my moon lamp had fallen OUT of it’s holder and rolled about 20 feet away from my altar and all the way across the room. Once again, no kitties nearby and this is a piece that is heavy enough it can’t just move without help. Especially when it is sitting in a very solid metal base.

March2021: Finally, towards the end of March, I had a bit of a crazier than normal experience. I was so exhausted one night that I had one of my prescription medications in bed with me and had meant to take it, had every intention of taking it, but fell asleep with it right there next to my pillow. I woke up the next morning and my medication was completely gone. I looked all over my bed, around my bed, removed the sheets and covers, around and behind my nightstand, and NOTHING. I looked hard because this is a medication you don’t want to just abruptly stop taking. I gave up and called in for a refill after I tore apart about half my room trying to find it. That night, I went to sleep as normal and when I woke up the next day, I couldn’t believe what I saw. I have a beautiful wooden box that mom gave me with my initials in gold on it. I keep it on my dresser near my bed. And wouldn’t you know that this box had not only rotated 180 degrees so that now the hinges were facing out towards me and the opening was facing the wall, but my medication that had disappeared the day or so prior was sitting next to the box with not a thing around or in the box disturbed.

March2021: And FINALLY, the last thing to happen this past March involved a friend of mine visiting. She will be moving here to San Antonio in August and is having a house built ahead of time. She came to visit and stayed with me so that she could make the final choices on tile, floor, counters, etc. Her plane arrived super late but we still stayed up chatting and laughing and finally when we did go to bed, it was about 1am. She stayed in my guest bedroom and had unplugged the nightlight because she didn’t think she needed it. Well as it turned out….. while she was trying to sleep, she glanced in a corner of the room in between the curtains and a bookshelf and saw what seemed to be a dark floating head with no facial features close to the ceiling. There wasn’t a body that she could remember but the scariest thing was that the hair was floating around her like she was underwater. Needless to say she was terrified. She barely slept at all and she kept her phone flashlight on all night long. In her defense, she didn’t scream and wake me up! However, when I saw her the next morning and asked her how she slept, she started telling about this freaking thing she saw. I asked her why she didn’t wake me up and she was afraid of what would happen if she spoke or made noise. But then I told her if her flashlight was on, she should have just called me and I would have come whether she spoke or not! She didn’t think of that. The only special thing about that bookshelf is that I have a beautiful traditional Czechoslovakian doll at the very top still in her original (slightly damaged over the years) box. My friend saw black hair so maybe the doll was possessed and didn’t like her? That’s our assumption but technically we have no proof one way or another.

Obviously March was a wild month for my house….

May 2021: I had been cleaning my bathroom in May and when I bent over to pick up some shampoo bottles to move so I could clean the tub, I saw the little black ghost cat. I noticed him quickly because Constantine chirps when he comes in the bathroom and is easily 3 times this things size and weight. As soon as I noticed him and turned my head fully to see him, he disappeared again. This is the same thing black ghost cat I have dubbed “Fluffy Frank” who had been playing with Loki back in November (see Part 2) and walked across my legs while I was in bed last June (see Part 1).

June 2021: The most recent happening in my house was another odd one. My altar is the entire front portion of my fireplace. However, for sanitation purposes, I keep all herbs and spices except lavender and sage in the kitchen in sealed containers. I went to my altar this morning and found that the entire altar had been dusted with cinnamon powder. I had thought it was sand from the giant clam shell Hekate stands in but after dropping a few grains next to it, I realized these were brown and fine instead of white and course and it was also very aromatic. There is no cinnamon on my altar. There is nothing containing cinnamon on my altar. In fact, there shouldn’t even be cinnamon in my living room. Somehow, with all of my cinnamon in sealed spice jars, a portion of my altar got dusted with cinnamon powder. It was most obvious on my obsidian scrying disc which I had just polished last week in fact. I’m not sure what the smudge on the disc is thought.

About 3 weeks ago, I invited Sekhmet into my home as I had finally decided that she would be an excellent patron goddess to accompany Hekate on my journey. The obsidian disc sits in front of my statue of Hekate and next to my statue of Sekhmet. As it so happens, cinnamon is a very typical offering to BOTH Sekhmet and Hekate….. APPARENTLY I have been skimping on their offerings and so the ladies took it upon themselves to correct that and decided to make their own. All over my altar. #CinnamonGoddessRave

That about brings us up to date for weird paranormal incidents happening in my house! For now…. I am sure they will continue to happen and I will update you as they occur!

Click here for Part 1 and Part 2 of this post.

Has anything spooky ever happened to you? I would love to hear about it! Leave a comment below!

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From our altar to yours, with love from the sea,

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Normally I wouldn’t do a post like this so soon after the first one if I didn’t have a lot to add on to my ghostly experiences….. but for some reason, I have had a rather large amount of paranormal activity in the last 4 months alone! All of my other experiences in the last post covered the last 5 or so years. I’m not complaining, mind you. It has never scared me. But the activity has definitely picked up.

June2020- The devil’s ivy that I have on my bookshelf in the living room started to rustle for about 4-6 seconds straight, the arms moving around without any help but only at the bottom like something was batting at the bottom tendrils. They have been like that for months and never moved before. No cats in the room. Air not on. I kept watching it from the dining room and finally said “well that’s interesting,” and it immediately stopped.

July2020- A friend of mine came over to hang out and while we were talking, my friend watched the stick portion of a really beautiful Mardi Gras mask that I got in Paris start moving back and forth on the wall of my living room. She freaked out as any normal person would. The mask was behind me so she saw it while we were talking. We talked about it a few months later and she was still a bit freaked over it happening. Her exact words were “I’m pretty sure you saw my eyes move from you to the mask, back to you, and the second time they moved to the mask, you saw how freaked out I was when you asked if I was ok before I told you what I saw.”

September2020- My cousin came up from Florida to take care of me during and after my surgery. She is also a Hekatean Witch and has had her own paranormal experiences in the past so she recognized it right away for what it was. She kept it to herself at first. I had never told her my house was haunted and since I had just had surgery and this was her first time in my home here in Texas, she didn’t want to offend me. Later on, it happened again and she gently asked me about it. I laughed because of course I knew my house was haunted but I always seem to forget to tell other people……

The first time was in the kitchen while she was making me dinner a day or two after my surgery. She felt a presence. She described it as not ominous or evil, but merely a presence that was there. Almost like how you are aware of someone when they are standing close to you. The second time she said she actually saw him and described him to me. Yup! This was my ghost! I named him Frank as a joke from a Facebook post I once saw:

Frank is of average height, late 40s to early 50s, bald white man. He usually dresses pretty dad casual. I’ve see him on a number of occasions. I think he might be shy because he doesn’t allow you to see him for very long if you do manage to catch a glimpse. When you do see him, he lacks deep colors and seems faded. You can always see through him.

September2020- After my cousin left and I was alone again, I had been sitting at the table drinking tea and reading when a drawer on my buffet, which is held closed on magnets and never acted this way before, slid open as if it had just been opened for someone to look inside. This happened right in front of me about 5 feet away on the other side of my dining table. No cats around and I hadn’t gone in that drawer for at least a week.

October2020- I was in a very deep sleep (and as a reminder, I live alone minus the fur babies) when all of a sudden, I heard a very deep MAN’S voice plain as day right next to me say “KNOCK KNOCK”, and right as he said that, Charlemagne pushed closed one of my dresser drawers that he had managed to paw open. I would say this is the ONLY ghostly instance that actually really freaked me out because I was asleep and therefore, not aware of my surroundings. I yelled out “GODDAMNIT FRANK! YOU’RE NOT FUNNY!” and it hasn’t happened since. Frank is going to find his transparent ass smudged and exorcised right out of my house if he thinks he can carry on with those kinds of pranks…….

October2020- I was walking from my bathroom, through my bedroom, and to my hallway while I was cleaning the house when all of a sudden, I did see a 2 and a half foot vertical black smoky pillar floating at about the height of an average human in my bedroom over right near my closet storage closet door. That one I stared at for a while and the smoke seemed to move in the manner of a lava lamp but wasn’t doing anything other than floating there so I just continued on my business. Vertical black smoky pillars gotta do what vertical black smoky pillars gotta do. No need to interrupt their business while I need to finish cleaning.

November2020- And the most recent experience that happened to me was with the new kitten, Loki! Loki was the little kitten that I had rescued on Samhain. I had mostly kept Loki in the guest bedroom while I was looking for someone to adopt him since I wasn’t aware of if he had any transferrable diseases. However, while trying to find him a home, I knew it wasn’t fair to keep him all locked up in a room by himself so I would shut the boys into my bedroom and let Loki roam around a bit. I have a covered litter box and I caught him batting at what seemed to be thin black cat in my litter box. That is what it looked like through the small windows on the covered litter box. (My litter box looks like an end table with a few slats for air flow and a small door for the boys to get in and out). As a reminder, I don’t own a thin black cat. My FAT black cat was shut away in the bedroom with the other 2. I walked over just in case Constantine had gotten out and was trying to do his business while Loki was bothering him and then as I approached the litter box, the black cat disappeared, almost faded away into the shadows, and Loki stopped batting his paw before trotting off like nothing had happened. I have since named this little black cat ghost Fluffy Frank. Very original, I know.

November2020- This one has a bit of a situation attached to it so it is a little longer of a story. I had just gotten my grocery list together and was about to go out grocery shopping when every single towel in my house fell off of what ever was holding it up. A tea towel had fallen off my stove handle, a wash cloth had fallen off my guest bath tub, a hand towel had fallen of the towel rack in my master bathroom onto the back of my toilet, and even a face mask that I had hanging on an octopus tentacle hook as a back up that had been there for the last 2 months fell down onto the floor. I actually noticed the mask first and was confused before picking it back up and running to the bathroom really quick before I left. That is when I noticed the bath tub wash cloth on the floor. After that, I walked around my house to see if there were any others and that was when I found the other 2 had fallen.

I couldn’t figure out why when my doorbell rang. I have a no soliciting sign outside my house so I thought it might be a neighbor. I opened the door and some random guy said he was with AT&T and needed to come into my (fenced off) yard to bury some cables. No neighbor had told me this was coming and he didn’t have ANYTHING on his person to identify him. His clothes were plain and non-descript. His truck was a working truck but had no company logo on it and no AT&T logo either. He didn’t even identify which neighbor needed this! The towels falling had kind of put me on edge since I was confused as to why that would happen and then this guy showed up not even 5 minutes after it happened. I asked for something that identified him with AT&T and he said he was a contractor for AT&T.

I asked for identification again because I wasn’t letting him into my yard to be able to see through my windows without knowing who he was. He got all huffy and stalked to his car (which he had parked in front of my neighbor’s house) before apparently asking THEM to let him bury a cable. They have a loud guard dog that is always flying off the handle so they let him and then put the dog back out into the yard.

Later that week, I actually needed to get a new phone because mine was not holding a charge anymore and I asked the lady I was working with about it. She said that they do use contractors sometimes and that he should have had an ID to show, even if it was just a piece of paper showing that his company contracts with AT&T. But that if he had needed to bury a cable, it was weird to her that he could just choose a different yard to bury it in…. I don’t know if he really did work for AT&T and was trying to do his job, worked for them and was scoping out a place to rob later, or didn’t work for them and was up to no good but I took 4 items in my house falling right before he rang my doorbell as a sign not to let him into my business and I feel better for it. Thanks Frank!

Has anything spooky ever happened to you? Leave a comment below!

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Many of us know poltergeists from the classic film series of the same name. A poltergeist is perhaps the best-known — and most feared — type of ghost, German for “noisy ghost” or “noisy spirit”. The word poltern, (“to make sound” and “to rumble”) and Geist (“ghost” and “spirit”. In ghost lore, a poltergeist is a type of ghost or spirit that is responsible for physical disturbances, such as loud noises and objects being moved or destroyed. They are purportedly capable of pinching, biting, hitting, and tripping people. Most accounts of poltergeists describe the movement or levitation of objects such as furniture and cutlery, or noises such as knocking on doors.

They have traditionally been described as troublesome spirits who haunt a particular person instead of a specific location. Such alleged poltergeist manifestations have been reported in many cultures and countries including the United States, India‚ Japan, Brazil, Australia, and most European nations. Early claims of spirits that supposedly harass and torment their victims date back to Ancient Roman times, but references to poltergeists became more common in the early 1600s.

Loud knocking sounds, lights turning on and off, doors slamming, even fires breaking out mysteriously have all been attributed to this type of a spiritual disturbance. Another frightening aspect of the poltergeist is that the event usually starts out slowly and mildly, then begins to intensify. And while many times poltergeist activity is harmless and ends quickly, they have been known to actually become dangerous. Some experts explain it as a mass form of energy that a living person is controlling unknowingly. Whatever the case may be, poltergeists have caught the attention of paranormal enthusiasts and experts, scientists and many others who are just plain curious.

Some parapsychologists view poltergeists as a type of ghost or supernatural entity which are responsible for psychological and physical disturbance. Others believe that such activity originates from “unknown energy” associated with a living person or a location.

Unlike ghosts, poltergeists are said to feed directly off of the emotional state of a particular person rather than being linked with a place. A person-focused poltergeist tends to (but not always) involve a female adolescent who is suffering from emotional turmoil when the activity begins. That said however, not all so called “focal agents” are teenagers. The age of people reporting experiences of poltergeist activity ranged from eight to 78 years.

Poltergeist activity is usually preceded by a trauma, such as a car accident, divorce or family death. Poltergeist activity is not necessarily related to a ghost or legend, it can move around with victims or can remain in one location. Poltergeist activity can appear in any location, castle, house, shop, pub. It is not location specific. There appear to be two distinct poltergeist types – one connected to a classic haunting where the poltergeist activity is simply part of the ‘haunting’ – the ‘ghost’ may move things for instance. Secondly, where the activity is connected to a person or place and does not display any classic haunting elements such as phantoms or adherence to a legend.

Poltergeist activity typically starts with minor isolated incidents. This could include unexplained sounds or familiar objects such as your keys or your phone moving from their usual place. Then the activity will become more intense, manifesting itself through voices and even the appearance of full apparitions. Furniture may slide across the room and beds may shake. Many shows are based on this type of haunting because it tends to be the most terrifying and rarest type of haunting that occurs. Some poltergeists have also been reported to scratch and harm those whose house they share. But while poltergeist activity is typically short-lived – manifestations typically lasting around five months – some cases have persisted for several years.

The Chilliwack poltergeist in Canada, for example was active for only two months between 1951 to 1952. During this time the Poltergeist produced loud and violent hammerings on walls accompanied by occasional flying objects. The Brother Doli Case, on the other hand, included a range of phenomena – stains, carvings of images and Welsh words, generally of a religious nature – and these persisted for several years.

One of the most famous poltergeist cases to happen in the UK involved the Hodgson Family, and their newly occupied council house in Enfield, North London. The family experienced nearly everything from disembodied voices to levitation. Between 1977 and 1979 it was the scene of demonic voices, objects moving without explanation, levitation, and strange noises. Events focused on the two teenage daughters Margaret and Janet.

Several reliable witnesses observed phenomena – these witnesses included a police constable, a press photographer and investigators from the Society for Psychical. While investigators did discover some evidence of pranks and fakery, it was believed that many of the poltergeist incidents were genuine.

Although the word’s definition implies that a poltergeist is a specific type of ghost (as do some other sources), many experts believe they’re actually completely different entity. “Poltergeists have nothing to do with ghosts or spirits at all,” explained Psychic Elements on its site. “The best way to describe it is active kinetic energy that causes physical disturbances.” This makes sense, as ghosts are generally unable to break through to the physical realm in the extreme ways that make poltergeists unique.

Some ghost hunters and paranormals propose that poltergeists are actually the emotions of troubled individuals – built up during times of stress. This theory, known as Spontaneous Recurring Psychokinesis suggests that this built-up stress then unconsciously projects outwards in the form of mental energy, which effects the physical environment and produces the phenomena attributed to poltergeists. But there is little evidence to support this notion.

“Poltergeists are not angry spirits seeking retribution, but psychic disturbances surrounding an unhappy person, often a teenager,” explained Psychic Elements. And as stated by Ghosts And Gravestones, “Some experts explain it as a mass form of energy that a living person is controlling unknowingly.” For this reason, poltergeists are known to follow energy or a person, rather than occupying a particular space like a ghost does, and the reason they’re known to be linked with teenagers is because of the extra-strong emotions and turmoil that comes with adolescence and puberty.

Most of the time you will find that one person in the house seems to be more affected by the haunting than anyone else. It may seem that most of the activity doesn’t happen unless that certain person is present. Usually, the activity appears to stop when that person leaves the home. The majority of the time poltergeists are experienced by several people, but again they seem to center around one certain person. This person may be highly stressed as of late or maybe this person has gone through some type of extreme emotional situation. If this is the case, see that the individual involved gets some medical care, and soon afterwards the poltergeist will subside.

Many people believe that spirits of the dead are responsible for poltergeist activity. This is said to be because people who experience them perceive an underlying intelligence and meaningful communication with an otherworldly being. This view proposes that a disembodied consciousness – or soul – survives bodily death. But again, there also isn’t any compelling scientific evidence to support this view either.

It is a spirit that is said to harass and torment its victims. This harassment typically includes minor but mysterious and disturbing events such as loud sounds, moving furniture, sheets and covers being pulled off beds, small objects inexplicably falling off shelves, stones rising off the ground and being hurled at people, and so on.

The interpretation of mysterious disturbances as being caused by a ghost specifically is a fairly recent development; a few centuries ago such events might have been attributed to witchcraft or even Satan.

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Flesh Eater of the Forests

The wendigo (also spelled windigo) is a mythological creature or evil spirit from the folklore of the First Nations Algonquian tribes based in the northern forests of Nova Scotia, the East Coast of Canada, and Great Lakes Region of Canada and in Wisconsin, United States. Known by several names —Witigo, Witiko, and Wee-Tee-Go — each of them roughly translates to “the evil spirit that devours mankind”. The wendigo is part of the traditional belief system of a number of Algonquin-speaking peoples, including the Ojibwe, the Saulteaux, the Cree, the Naskapi, and the Innu.

The wendigo is described as a monster with some characteristics of a human or as a spirit who has possessed a human being and made them become monstrous. Its influence is said to invoke acts of murder, insatiable greed, cannibalism and the cultural taboos against such behaviors. Although descriptions can vary somewhat, common to all these cultures is the view that the wendigo is a malevolent, cannibalistic, supernatural being. They were strongly associated with winter, the north, coldness, famine, and starvation. The wendigo is seen as the embodiment of gluttony, greed, and excess: never satisfied after killing and consuming one person, they are constantly searching for new victims.

Various Indigenous traditions consider wendigos dangerous because of their thirst for blood and their ability to infect otherwise healthy people or communities with evil. One usually becomes a wendigo as punishment for dishonorable or taboo activities, such as engaging in cannibalism due to starvation. According to Shawn Smallman, author of Dangerous Spirits: The Windigo in Myth and History, “it was a means of defining moral social behavior, which could serve as a warning against greed and selfishness.”

In some traditions, humans overpowered by greed could turn into wendigos; the myth thus served as a method of encouraging cooperation and moderation. Other sources say wendigos were created when a human resorted to cannibalism to survive. Humans could turn into wendigos by being in contact with them for too long and one could also become a wendigo if a shaman cursed them or if they dreamed of the wendigo. Wendigo legends are essentially cautionary tales about isolation and selfishness, and the importance of community. The myth was also used to explain mental illness and other serious afflictions.

According to the legend, a Wendigo is created whenever a human resorts to cannibalism to survive. In the past, this occurred more often when Indians and settlers found themselves stranded in the bitter snows and ice of the north woods. Sometimes stranded for days, any survivors might have felt compelled to cannibalize the dead in order to survive. Other versions of the legend cite that humans who displayed extreme greed, gluttony, and excess might also be possessed by a wendigo, thus the myth served as a method of encouraging cooperation and moderation.

Native American versions of the creature spoke of a gigantic spirit, over fifteen feet tall, that had once been human but had been transformed into a creature by the use of magic. Though all of the descriptions of the creature vary slightly, the wendigo is generally said to have glowing eyes, long yellowed fangs, terrible claws, and overly long tongues. Sometimes they are described as having sallow, yellowish skin and other times, depicted to be covered with matted hair. The creature is said to have a number of skills and powers including stealth, is a near-perfect hunter, knows and uses every inch of its territory, and can control the weather through the use of dark magic. They are also portrayed as simultaneously gluttonous and emaciated from starvation. Wendigos are said to be cursed to wander the land, eternally seeking to fulfill their voracious appetite for human flesh and if there is nothing left to eat, it starves to death.

Different versions of the wendigo legend say different things about his speed and agility. Some claim he is unusually fast and can endure walking for long periods of time, even in harsh winter conditions. Others say he walks in a more haggard manner, as if he is falling apart. But speed wouldn’t be a necessary skill for a monster of this nature. Unlike other terrifying carnivores, the wendigo doesn’t rely on pursuing his prey in order to capture and eat it. Rather, one of his said traits is his ability to mimic human voices. He uses this skill to lure people in and draw them away from civilization. Once they’re isolated in the desolate depths of the wilderness, he feasts on them.

The Algonquian people say that during the turn of the 20th century, a large number of their people went missing mysteriously. The tribes attributed many of the disappearances to the wendigo, thus calling him the “spirit of lonely places.” Another rough translation of wendigo is “the evil spirit that devours mankind.” This translation is related to yet another version of the wendigo that claims he has the power to curse humans by possessing them. Once he has infiltrated their minds, he can turn them into wendigos as well, instilling upon them the same lust for human flesh that he himself has.

However, Wendigo creature sightings are still reported, especially in northern Ontario, near the Cave of the Wendigo, and around the town of Kenora, where it has allegedly been spotted by traders, trackers, and trappers for decades. There are many who still believe that the Wendigo roams the woods and the prairies of northern Minnesota and Canada. Kenora, Ontario, Canada, has been given the title of Wendigo Capital of the World by many. Sightings of the creature in this area have continued well into the new millennium.

Among the Assiniboine, the Cree and the Ojibwe, a satirical ceremonial dance is sometimes performed during times of famine to reinforce the seriousness of the wendigo taboo. The ceremony, known as wiindigookaanzhimowin, was performed during times of famine, and involved wearing masks and dancing backwards around a drum.

Basil H. Johnston, an Ojibwe teacher and scholar from Ontario, gives a description of a wendigo: “The Wendigo was gaunt to the point of emaciation, its desiccated skin pulled tightly over its bones. With its bones pushing out against its skin, its complexion the ash-gray of death, and its eyes pushed back deep into their sockets, the Wendigo looked like a gaunt skeleton recently disinterred from the grave. What lips it had were tattered and bloody … Unclean and suffering from suppuration of the flesh, the Wendigo gave off a strange and eerie odor of decay and decomposition, of death and corruption.”

The Algonquian legend describes the creature as: “a giant with a heart of ice; sometimes it is thought to be entirely made of ice. Its body is skeletal and deformed, with missing lips and toes.”

The Ojibwa describe it as: “It was a large creature, as tall as a tree, with a lipless mouth and jagged teeth. Its breath was a strange hiss, its footprints full of blood, and it ate any man, woman or child who ventured into its territory. And those were the lucky ones. Sometimes, the Wendigo chose to possess a person instead, and then the luckless individual became a Wendigo himself, hunting down those he had once loved and feasting upon their flesh.”

In Ojibwe, Eastern Cree, Westmain Swampy Cree, Naskapi, and Innu lore, wendigos are often described as giants that are many times larger than human beings, a characteristic absent from myths in other Algonquian cultures. Whenever a wendigo ate another person, it would grow in proportion to the meal it had just eaten, so it could never be full. Therefore, wendigos are portrayed as simultaneously gluttonous and extremely thin due to starvation.

According to ethno-historian Nathan Carlson, it’s also been said that the wendigo has large, sharp claws and massive eyes like an owl. However, some other people simply describe the wendigo as a skeleton-like figure with ash-toned skin.

The first European-written account of a wendigo was by Paul Le Jeune, a Jesuit missionary who lived among the Algonquin people in the early-17th century in what is now Quebec. In a report to his superiors in Paris in 1636, Le Jeune wrote:

This devilish woman…added that [the windigo] had eaten some Attikamegoukin — these are the tribes that live north of the River that is called Three Rivers — and that he would eat a great many more of them if he were not called elsewhere. But that Atchen (sort of a werewolf) would come in his place to devour them… even up to the French Fort; that he would slaughter the French themselves.

Father Le Jeune’s report demonstrates that 17th-century Europeans believed in evil supernatural spirits just as strongly as their First Nations contemporaries. In fact, Father Le Jeune’s report predates the Salem Witch Trials by nearly 60 years. Missionaries in what became Canada continued to report legends of the wendigo until well into the 20th century.

The legend lends its name to the disputed modern medical term Wendigo Psychosis, which is considered by some psychiatrists to be a syndrome that creates an intense craving for human flesh and a fear of becoming a cannibal. In some Indigenous communities, environmental destruction and insatiable greed are also seen as a manifestation of Wendigo Psychosis. Ironically, this psychosis is said to occur within people living around the Great Lakes of Canada and the United States. Wendigo Psychosis usually develops in the winter in individuals who are isolated by heavy snow for long periods. The initial symptoms are poor appetite, nausea, and vomiting. Subsequently, the individual develops a delusion of being transformed into a wendigo monster. People who have Wendigo Psychosis increasingly see others around them a being edible. At the same time, they have an exaggerated fear of becoming cannibals.

The most common response when a person showed signs of Wendigo Psychosis was a curing attempt by traditional native healers. In cases of the past, if these attempts failed and if the possessed person began either to threaten those around them or to act violently or anti-socially; they were executed. There have been reports regarding this psychosis dating back hundreds of years.

In historical accounts of Wendigo Psychosis, it has been reported that humans became possessed by the wendigo spirit, after being in a situation of needing food and having no other choice besides cannibalism.

One of the more famous cases of Wendigo Psychosis reported involved a Plains Cree trapper from Alberta, named Swift Runner. During the winter of 1878, Swift Runner and his family were starving, and his eldest son died. Twenty-five miles away from emergency food supplies at a Hudson’s Bay Company post, Swift Runner butchered and ate his wife and five remaining children. Given that he resorted to cannibalism so near to food supplies, and that he killed and consumed the remains of all those present, it was revealed that Swift Runner’s was not a case of pure cannibalism as a last resort to avoid starvation, but rather of a man with Wendigo Psychosis. He eventually confessed and was executed by authorities at Fort Saskatchewan. He was hanged for his crime.

Frighteningly enough, there were quite a few other stories about these spirits supposedly possessing people in communities stretching from northern Quebec to the Rockies. Many of these reports were shockingly similar to the Swift Runner case.

Another well-known case involving Wendigo Psychosis was that of Jack Fiddler, an Oji-Cree chief and medicine man known for his powers at defeating wendigos. In some cases, this entailed killing people with Wendigo Psychosis. As a result, in 1907, Fiddler and his brother Joseph were arrested by the Canadian authorities for homicide. Jack committed suicide, but Joseph was tried and sentenced to life in prison. He ultimately was granted a pardon, but died three days later in jail before receiving the news of this pardon.

Fascination with Wendigo Psychosis among Western ethnographers, psychologists, and anthropologists led to a hotly debated controversy in the 1980s over the historicity of this phenomenon. Some researchers argued that essentially, Wendigo Psychosis was a fabrication, the result of naive anthropologists taking stories related to them at face value without observation. Others have pointed to a number of credible eyewitness accounts, both by Algonquians and others, as evidence that Wendigo Psychosis was a factual historical phenomenon.

Much like other legendary beasts, the wendigo remains a fixture in pop culture in modern times. The creature has been referenced and sometimes even depicted in a variety of hit television shows, including Supernatural, Grimm, and Charmed.

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This is a bit of a longer article with my own personal experiences being noted. Growing up, I had never believed in ghosts. They were superstitious nonsense to me. After my dad retired, we stopped moving around and grew up in mostly North Carolina. The South has a lot of great ghostly sightings and stories, especially in certain cities like Savannah, Georgia and New Orleans, Louisiana but I really only took them as stories.

There were only 2 ghost stories I had ever heard in real life from someone I knew when I was growing up. These are the only 2 stories that were not from a book, a legend, or ghost tour. The first was a Southern tradition that you have to hold your breath when you drive by a cemetery or ghosts will enter your body and posses you which was absolutely ridiculous. I was in the car with my friend and her mom and her mom saw the cemetery ahead and yelled at us to quickly hold our breath NOW or all the spirits would possess us! I was flabbergasted. Even as a child, that made no sense to me and I remember telling my mother when I got home. Said mother immediately scoffed and went on a rant about how could an adult try to scare children with such a ridiculous thing? We talked about why we both thought it ridiculous. How does a funeral take place? How does the priest preside over it? How do the groundskeepers maintain the land? How do family members come to mourn and clean ancestor grave stones? No one holds their breath in a cemetery so why should you when you drive by a cemetery? All very valid question to my very logic based brain.

The second was a friend who told me that they had a haunted watering can that always dripped water no matter how hot and dry everything was. She said sometimes she saw the ghost of her uncle by that watering can and that it had only started to be permanently wet after he died. She never mentioned if it was his watering can. She came from a VERY rough family with lots of issues so I chalked it up either wanting attention or being a tad off from her upbringing. Her parents were completely nuts and abusive and my mom hated me visiting her. She preferred her to come to our house. So another easy explanation for my logic based brain.

I never had any experiences of my own so I just just chalked it up to people being a little eccentric and wanting a good attention grabbing story. My life was pretty mundane for the most part. When I turned 24 was when things started changing for me. This was around the time I was I was becoming very interested in Wicca and everything it symbolized. I have always been creative and loved the creativity of everything Pagan and I just considered ghosts another character arch type in fantasy and Pagan stories.

BUT THEN I MOVED TO ARIZONA

In July of 2014, I moved to Arizona. I was living in a very old dorm and that is when things got a little bit more exciting for my mundane life. I had fully converted to Paganism. Wiccan wasn’t really what I was looking for spiritually but I hadn’t settled for witchcraft yet. I was still reading and researching, trying to decide my path. I wasn’t sure what I wanted, but I knew Paganism was right for me. In Arizona I lived in a dorm first, an apartment second, and a rented house third. In this dorm is when strange things began to happen to me/ us.

My now best friend and I had been having tea in the common area late at night when we decided to turn in. We went to her room while talking and I locked the deadbolt on our front door on the way. While still talking, we left her room to go clean up the tea cups still on the table and she noticed the deadbolt was unlocked. She laughed saying I must not have turned it right and relocked the deadbolt. We cleaned up the tea cups and finished cleaning up the kitchen before I was saying goodnight to her at her door. And you guessed it…. the deadbolt was unlocked again. Both our other roommates were in bed and we would have seen them come out. No one else has a key. And the thing you have to realize about this deadbolt is that when it turns IT IS LOUD. We never heard anything.

Next, I was sitting in my room with my door locked while my BFF had 3 other friends over and they were in the common area chatting quite loudly so I put my headphones on and was playing a computer game. The next thing I know, they broke in my door using 2 butter knives to pop the lock and were freaking out asking if I was ok. All 4 of them heard furniture crashing to the ground and what sounded like a fight taking place behind my door. They thought I was being attacked and reacted trying to help me. I just looked up from my video game confused and asked if I could help them. My BFF said the same thing happened to her before I moved in and her roommates came to check on her because they thought she was being attacked but she was fine.

Another time, I had been taking a nice relaxing bath and I leave my bathroom door open to let steam out. While sitting in the tub, one of my books flew about 5 feet off my shelf and onto my floor. The only one home was my BFF and so I thought she had knocked my book over and ran out of the room as a prank. Not really her style but there is a first time for everything right? Except that I am protective of my books and I jumped out of the bath and ran out trying to catch her. I busted into her room and started yelling at her why did she knock my book on the floor? Well, I walked in on her in the bath, listening to music, and reading Harry Potter. She didn’t do it. This was not the only times books would fly off my shelf. In the last 6 years, it has happened 6 different times with all different books each time.

Other instances while in the dorm was a bear I received from Germany that had sat on my shelves undisturbed for almost a year before it flew off my bookshelf about 3 feet away and landed face up but somehow didn’t knock over anything that was standing in front of this bear on its way down. A different time, I was chatting with Roommate B who was laying on her bed. Literally while we were chatting, a shirt flew horizontal about 10 feet out of her wardrobe and she was so freaked out because her bed faces her open wardrobe and there was nothing there. Lastly, a group of about 6 of us were sitting at the table and hanging in the kitchen when our final Roommate’s boots started vibrating by the front door for a good 20 seconds. These were big heavy cowgirl boots and they had been sitting there all morning just fine. No doors opened, the air wasn’t on, and I checked after they finally stopped to see if there was a mouse or bug and there was not.

After about 2 years, I moved into my own apartment and lived alone except for my cats.

I had been sitting alone on my couch playing on my laptop when my wand flew out of my open curio cabinet. The doors had been open because I had lit some scented candles. I had not touched my wand in a month since my last ritual but it came flying towards me about 12 feet and then rolled to a stop near me. My wand is longer than the doors are wide and so it somehow got over the things in front of it, turned, and flew out of my cabinet.

The most common thing to happen at my apartment and rented house was for cat toys to suddenly show up in places there is no possible way a cat could put them. They would show up on top shelves of my book shelves, or in cabinets they couldn’t reach, and sometimes toys I had donated to shelters reappeared. They showed up in such strange places I have actually called my friends and asked them if they put them there before, to which they were confused and said no, they don’t mess with the boys’ toys.

At my rented house, I had just brought a friend over and was warning her my house was haunted so if anything moved, don’t worry about it. Literally, just as I said that, my air freshener on top of the refrigerator, the ONLY THING on top of the CENTER of the refrigerator flew off and right towards her head. I think she had to dodge it. Another time I came home to my boys 1 gallon water fountain unplugged and in the middle of the living room floor. This was a year before I had roombas too.

Books flying off the shelves was MOST common here in this house. It happened once in the dorms and then 4 more times in this house. Again, different books, different book shelves, different shelf heights but most often towards the lower shelf. I don’t recall if it happened in my apartment but that doesn’t mean it didn’t.

The final instance in my rented home was when I had a friend over for tea and 2 of the 4 cabinet doors on my curio cabinet flew open at the same time. This curio cabinet houses all of my witchy items in it and the 2 middle doors flew open while we were at the kitchen table not paying attention. This thing is about 15 feet away from us and those doors STICK and they are magnetic so we were both surprised when the thing opened so quickly and with ease while no one, not even the cats were near it.

At my work in Arizona, I had a few instances as well. Most of the clinic swears that a little girl haunts it but I never saw her. I did, however, hear my name whispered in the bathroom multiple times. There was no one there. Speaking to other staff, this is apparently very normal for that specific bathroom….

I had been walking past a dental treatment room and the lights were off but I saw someone in a Navy uniform bent over the sink. It suddenly occurred to me that a patient should not be left alone in a treatment room and especially not with lights off and so literally as I stepped past the room, I back tracked and he was gone.

The final instance at the clinic was when my BFF came with me to work and it was very late. Lights were off but I think I needed something printed off for the next day. As we were walking down the empty dark hallway, her phone which was in her purse suddenly turned on to halfway through Toto’s song Africa. We were both freaked because it was 11pm at night and we were all alone. Now we laugh and instantly associate Toto’s Africa with haunted dental clinics.

And then there was Bisbee Arizona. This place is literally my favorite city in Arizona but MAN is it haunted! A group of 6 of us took a trip there around Samhain and stayed in a “haunted” hotel for funsies. We also did a ghost walk. It was definitely haunted. I was in pain and took my hard core meds so I was out cold and while my best friend and I were alone in the room sleeping (because she was also sick), something tucked her in, in a way that she would have HAD have felt. Think covers tucked about 4 -5 inches under her body and the top comforter laid neatly across her and then folded back perfectly. The rest of our people were running around the hotel with my camera and were all together and neither of us heard anyone enter. My best friend woke up confused as to HOW she got tucked in so tightly and that top sheet laid so perfectly across her.

That night, 2 of our friends heard keys jingling throughout the room. They both got up to check while me and my best friend were sleeping and their keys were exactly as they left them but they both still heard jingling keys after. I took a shower and heard a sneeze in the shower with me. I freaked out because there was obviously no one there. Then my best friend took a shower and heard a child giggling in the shower with her. Then our other friend took a shower and heard an urgently whispered yell of “FIRE!” in the shower. The next day, Bisbee’s city hall building went up in flames around 1am. We took a ghost walk and when we came back I took a picture of our hotel’s lobby. I think I liked the old stairs or something. Well when we looked at the pictures later, there was a face in the stairwell at exactly the height of where if someone was standing.

Finally, I left Arizona and moved to Texas. Things haven’t changed and the activity is becoming more and more common. I have a beautiful horsehair vase that I bought in Arizona and when I went into the guest bedroom to clean, I found it turned around with the dream catcher facing out the window. It was a perfect 180 and not moved from its very center position on the windowsill.

My dad bought me a roomba to help me keep up with all the cat hair in my new house in Texas. It has settings you can put in so that it goes off at the same time every day. I programmed it to go off at 6am so it would go off while I was getting ready for work and if it got stuck under anything, I could move it right away. About 2 months into owning, the thing started going off at 3am on the dot. It was still programmed for 6 and it still went off at 6 but it would wake me up because the charging dock was in my bedroom and for a week it also went off at 3am. Then it stopped doing that and went back to only 6am. Not sure if this is a glitch in the system?

I have loads of instances with cat toys getting in weird places here as well. Sometimes, I am not even sure how it is possible even with a ghost involved. At this point, I believe it is a ghost cat. I have a cat skull on my altar in honor of my boys and it has moved and turned its head before.

My mother gave me a metal bracelet to fix for her and so I did. I had to take one of the decorative pieces off of it because it was broken beyond repair but I did manage to reattach the rest so that it could be worn again. I left it on the table over night so I could mail it to her the next day and when I woke up, the bracelet was broken beyond repair in another spot but it had not moved from where I left it on my dining room table.

The most recent ghostly experience in this house has been a small shadow of something I see running through my house. To me it looks like a black shadow cat but I can only ever see it out of the corner of my eye. When I see it, I always look for my 3 boys and usually they are sleeping on the table in front of me or under my bed and so there is no way it could have been them.

Just last week I felt a cat walk across my feet and I dropped the book I was reading very quickly but there was no cat on my bed just as I thought there hadn’t been. Because last time I checked on the boys, Charlie was in the living room sleeping in his haunted house, Con was under the bed laying in his pumpkin, and Niku was also under the bed sleeping.

The next morning, I woke up and the 2 chairs that are on either side of my tarot table which usually face in towards the table were now both a foot away from the table or more and facing outwards. Not only that, that day I came home there was a beautiful feather sitting right smack in the middle of my living room. I will let you know right now I WISH I had feathers like this because it was beautiful. It was never on a cat toy and the only other feathers I have are ones I have found outside. I don’t have crafting feathers. Cats and feathers don’t mix and they try to murder anything feathery. I learned that long ago. But they left this feather alone and it was perfect.

So in conclusion, I am much more open minded and now fully believe in ghosts. I am ASSUMING I have a little kitty ghost who has been house hopping with me and is attached to something I picked up when I lived in dorms 6 years ago but who knows! A lot of people have told me to smudge my house (I do bi-weekly and before ritual) but it has done nothing. I am going to assume that the little cat ghost means me no harm and just wants to play with my boys so I let him stay here and don’t question it anymore. I just take pictures and update my friends on what the little cat ghost has done this time. Until a knife starts hovering and coming for my throat, I figure I am probably safe. Likely. Probably.

Has anything spooky ever happened to you? Leave a comment below!

From our altar to yours, with love from the sea,

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