Witch House Fervor

Happy belated birthday, HP Lovecraft!

So much has been written about Lovecraft over the past 10 years, it is tough to highlight anything new.  My personal experience with Lovecraft was actually quite random.  While walking through Barnes and Nobel in college, I happened to find a book by Lovecraft in the fantasy/sci fi section.  Unlike today, there was only one anthology in stock, and I had no idea about who he was or what he wrote.  I read the back of it, purchased it, and began to read it that same night.

The first story I recall thinking "wow, this is something completed unexpected " was Dreams of the Witch House.  It really had it all : astral plane geometry, arcane New England witchcraft, Miskatonic University, a demonic, rat like "white-fanged furry thing",  ultradimensional travel, shadow people, and good old high order black magic.  And all of this was written in 1931/32.

One could argue that Lovecraft was an "experiencer" or that had tapped into some collective unconsciousness that fed him many of the ideas that are currently in fortean vogue.  It is amazing that he was able to be so ahead of the curve in terms of the ultraterrestrial experience.  Books of course have been written, theories hypothesized, and all other philosophical thought has been directed at Lovecraft and the origin of his ideas.  I personally believe he was an "experiencer" and was witness to something that influenced his mythos.  Then again, I obviously never met him nor have I read a biography on him, so I should probably hold judgement.

Now if one were to try to find such a real life "Witch House", I am sure many houses exist all over the world. My personal favorite is the Ancient Ram Inn, highlighted, of course, on my favorite ghost hunting show "Ghost Adventures".  Yes, yes...Ghost Adventures; I know, I know.  The show could be fake, could be sort of real, could be a mix of the two; I don't know.  I do sense that the key energy of the show is Nick Groff, and I do believe his ability to play out paranormal energies is legitimate.  This is just my opinion of course.  I have no idea what the truth may be, but I enjoy the show and I do hope the show's stars and experiences are genuine.

Now before you delete this blog from your blog list for mentioning Lovecraft and GA together, I do recommend you check out the Ancient Ram Inn on GA.  The episode was a book end of season 2 and I thought it was absolutely fascinating.  Witchcraft, pagan children sacrificial burials, demonic entities, elemental activity - you name it, and the Ram Inn has seen it.  Of course I'm not saying a link exists between the house and Lovecraft (or Ghost Adventures...), but experiences discussed/incurred on the episode most certainly rate with the more "highly strange".  I would recommend the short story and episode to all.  Who doesn't like a very wicked witch house?

In the Den of Shadow People

I took this photo late last night at my place of work; it features a hallway leading to an area of the corporate center of the company I work with.  With a bit of editing, it is turned to an angle.  And in the area that is lit, there have been two encounters with shadow people by my fellow employees.

As I've mentioned before, I don't believe I have the ability to see the random energy that is about us; I don't believe that I have a "needle" to play out the energy around me to the extent to witness paranormal events.  Yet I have no doubt others do have the ability see play the "record" of energy about us.

Two incidents have happened in the area featured above that I am aware of; one incident involved a network/IT specialist who would have been seated directly to the left of the area above.  One afternoon, while working on a network issue after normal work hours, he witnessed two shadow people walking  from the foreground to the background on the lit hallway featured above.  Being on the left hand side of the hallway, the shadow people moved left to right from his perspective.  He immediately went to the area to find the people but had no such luck.

The second incident involved a customer service representative who worked one Saturday afternoon, again, after normal work hours.  She would have been seated at the very end of the hallway, directly to the right of the back wall.  She claimed to have heard children running around her that afternoon; footsteps of children running along the hallway to the back and to the near ground of the photo.  The following Monday, she had our IT group look at a video tape recording of the office (a security camera does record the entire area featured above); again no evidence was found of children in the office.  The video tape did show her "reacting to something"; the video tape did show her stand up from her desk, peer around the corner, and move around the office.  It was clear that she was looking for something.  Of course, nothing was found in person or in film.

I have heard several theories of the cause of shadow people; multidimensional beings, djinn, ghosts, alien entities, and mental projections.  Many more theories likely exist.  Yet I question again these premises; why does the experience need to have an intelligent or sentient root cause?  Why can't the incident simply be energy that manifests specifically to the observer and to the observer's sociological/psychological perspective?  Why does there need to be a romantic notion of other intelligences or previous life as being the cause for the phenomenon?  More specifically, why can't the energy being witnessed be random; better yet, why can't the universe be random?