Why do I believe in ghosts?

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,

Click here for an Index to all posts