Season Of The Supernatural
by Theresa Hogue
This is the time of the year that brings out the believer in a lot of folks who normally scoff at any mention of spirits or otherwordly activity.
When I was about 3 years old, according to my mother, I developed the uncanny ability to announce, seconds before the phone rang, that it was about to ring, and who the caller was going to be.
This happened so often, and was so strange, that my mother reported it to my pediatrician, who brushed her concerns aside by telling her that young children often recognize patterns that adults don’t see, and that I was merely able to accurately predict the time and frequency of calls to our house.
Whether or not the doctor’s theory was correct, I eventually either outgrew this habit or, noticing my mother’s worried reaction, simply stopped mentioning it.
But around the same time that I was playing the part of phone psychic, I also casually mentioned other sorts of visions that added to my general weirdness.
One of those moments that still chills her to this day is when I pointed to the corner of a room in our 1930s-era house and announced that a man’s face was hovering there.
Did I see something mom couldn’t see, or was I just exhibiting the overactive imagination that has yet to go away? I don’t have a recollection of those Carrie-like tendencies of my toddler-hood, so I can’t say for sure what I did or didn’t see.
But I certainly can’t dismiss my mother’s stories, or the other vaguely supernatural things I’ve experienced as an adult.
This is the time of the year that brings out the believer in a lot of folks who normally scoff at any mention of spirits or otherwordly activity.
Around this time of year, very common-sensical folk begin sharing their own stories of visions, prophetic dreams, unexplained shadows or outright hauntings.
As a writer, I absolutely soak up these kind of firsthand accounts, and they often serve to confirm my own experiences.
I’ve lived in several places throughout my life where I can say it felt, at times, that something else was present.
In one house, an old bathroom sink would turn itself on and off at full blast several times, but its handles would always be firmly in the closed position when we’d run to check.
In another house, guests would report the feeling of a small child getting into bed with them, at times when the only child in the house was firmly tucked in and asleep. In that same house, keys turned by themselves in old locks, and a bathroom door flung itself open into my hand when the house was otherwise empty.
These are pretty mild examples that skeptics will immediately dismiss as lacking in substantial evidence. I have never seen an apparition, never felt a ghostly hand on my shoulder or could say, without a doubt, that I’d truly witnessed a ghost.
However, my strongest brush with the so-called supernatural happened in an unexpected place, and included so many witnesses, and so many confirming experiences afterward, that I really can’t dismiss it as bad plumbing or even an overactive imagination.
Many years ago, I was in Portland shopping with some friends of mine, and we decided to check out an import store that had a lot of jewelry and furniture from all over the world, as well as folk art and religious pieces.
The main floor was filled with sunshine and had lots of neat corners to poke around in, but we decided to go downstairs, to the basement-level showroom, where the big furniture pieces were kept.
Basements can be a little foreboding, as they’re often windowless and, when packed with furniture, can be hard to navigate. But as soon as I walked down the stairs and into the room, I knew that something was very wrong.
It started out with a prickling and a sense of nervousness, but as I walked toward the back of the room, making my way past wardrobes and trunks and statues, I became more and more panicked. There’s no way to describe the feeling as something other than evil.
Finally, I became so overwhelmed with the feeling that I risked embarrassment and literally ordered my friends to get back up the stairs with me.
Seeing my face, they obeyed without question, and it wasn’t until we were safely on the main floor that I explained my feelings, which were so strong that afterward, I walked over to the clerk to ask if there was something “strange” about downstairs, without sharing what had just happened.
The clerk launched into a long list of ghostly activities that staff had experienced both in the store and in adjoining stores down the block, which ranged from apparitions to floating objects.
One of my friends who was with me that day, and considers herself a staunch skeptic, was so intrigued with what I’d experienced that some time later, she went back to the store with another friend, without telling her what I’d experienced. When they went down into the basement, her friend reported that she’d heard disembodied voices that startled her.
Months later, because my friend likes to have lots of evidence, she took some visiting cousins to the store, and went downstairs with them, again without sharing what had happened previously.
Her cousin’s husband not only had the same overwhelming feeling of fear and need to flee, but he actually reported that he’d seen a dark and sinister vision in the far corner that terrified him to the core. That report, again from someone who had not been prompted to look for anything strange, confirmed to my friend that something was going on.
I firmly refuse to return to the store to this day, and am refraining from publishing its name because I honestly don’t want others going and looking for trouble in that place. Whatever I and others felt in that basement, it’s not something I’d encourage others to seek. And if it’s all in my head, well, I’d hate to damage the store’s reputation.
This is the time of year when it becomes socially acceptable to believe in the supernatural.
But when you open yourself up to the possibility of the unexplained, it can also be a little scary.
So I say trust your instincts, and when your gut tells you, there’s no shame in running as fast and as far as you need to go.
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