Paranormal Story Archives
November 2001
– Page 26
Amateur Séances
by Jeff F.
When I was 18 years old, I lived in the "boondocks" of upstate N.Y. My best friend and I were hanging out at my place (my mother's house) when a neighbor friend of mine came by to ask for a ride to his girlfriend's house. We gave him the ride to a place that was even more remote. He led us to an old farmhouse that was virtually in the middle of nowhere. We waited for a moment after dropping him off to be sure that his girlfriend was there, and he came back to the car saying, "They're having a séance in there. Do you wanna come in?" Being the adventurous and bored teens that we were, we agreed to accept the invitation.
The farmhouse was large, old and run-down. We noticed that blankets had been put over the windows to block the afternoon daylight. Upon entering, we were introduced to the family members performing he séance. They were an old lady and man and a younger man; the parents and older brother of my friend's girlfriend. They were seated around an old Formica and chrome kitchen table with one leg removed. A candle burned at the center of the table. They communicated with the spirits by lightly resting their fingertips on the table and inviting the spirits to come and "nod the table" by tilting it at the corner that had the missing leg. In this way, the spirits could answer "yes" with a quick "nod" of the table, "no" by holding it suspended down for a moment, or spell out words or count numbers by repeatedly nodding the table. During the session, the spirits answered some questions correctly and some incorrectly, but the experience had left an impression on us and we had to try it ourselves.
A few days later, the friend that had provided the ride and I coaxed two other friends to try a séance, based on what we had learned from the farmers. We used an old card table with one leg left folded up and a lit candle in the center. We sat with our fingertips just touching the table surface, and took turns saying, "If there is a witch in the house, nod the table," just as the farmers had demonstrated. After 10 minutes or so of no success, my friend Eric, a comedian, cackled like a witch to be funny, but as we all started laughing, the table abruptly nodded. We were suddenly very serious and after asking for confirmation, realized that there was a presence moving the table. Feeling like car-chasing dogs that had finally caught something, we didn't know what to do with our spirit. We each asked dopey questions and received various answers. The memorable part of the session is that my friend Bernie asked the spirit if he would have trouble with his beloved truck. The spirit answered yes. Bernie asked if the trouble would be serious. The spirit answered no. We continued for a short while and closed our session.
When Bernie went to leave a few minutes later, he came back in saying, "You won't believe this, but I've got a flat tire." Sure enough, Bernie's truck's tire had gone flat during our séance, and we proceeded to help him put on the spare. About a week later, three of us "séance participants" were riding in Bernie's truck, coming back from another friend's house, who also lived in the middle of nowhere. We started discussing the séance of the previous week. Just as soon as we started recounting our experiences Bernie stated, "Guys, you won't believe this, but I've got another flat." He pulled over to the side of the road and we climbed out to see that he indeed had another flat tire. There was no spare, as Bernie had not replaced the spare from making the repair on the day of the séance. We then walked the nine miles or so into town, in the middle of the night, in a snowstorm. We had several séances over a three to four month timeframe, and each has its own strange story. We communicated with entities that identified themselves as dead family members, demons and angels. I have vivid memories of the experiences and the table saying and doing things that were unbelievable. Eventually, my friends refused to participate any more after one particularly frightening session when an entity identified itself as the devil. This entity knew Bernie's middle name, even though none of the rest of us did. It said that it had a message for Bernie. That's when we blew out the candle and never tried again. The house that we held all of these séances in has continued to exhibit regular episodes of strange paranormal phenomena for the past 25 years.
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