The Haunting
From James Donahue’s Journal
I used to joke that if ever there was going to be a haunted house, it would be the Babcock homestead at the corner of Deckerville and Hurd’s Corner Roads. That was because Doris’ mother, Gladys, lived in that house most of her life, and in the end, would never leave it for more than a few days at a time. She died in the living room while receiving hospice care.
We didn’t notice any problems during the time when Doris and Jerry were busy remodeling the house. It wasn’t until we finished the work and moved into it that we became aware that something was wrong. Our dog did not like living in the house and he spent his nights sleeping at the door of our bedroom, obviously afraid of something in the house.
After she began talking to the entities with the help of her board, and after our encounters with Dusty Flowers, we became aware of what we first thought of as “dark forces” around us in the house. Dusty gave Doris a bag of tree bark and dried sage with instruction for burning this material in a metal dish to make smoke, and then go through the house, allowing the smoke to waif through the rooms and verbally banishing the spirits by name.
That evening Doris set about to cleanse the house. She first opened the board and asked for the names of the spirits that were haunting us. We should not have been surprised that it was the spirit of her mother. What really surprised us was that she was not alone. She was accompanied by the spirits of Doris’s dead brother, Bub, a dead uncle, Harry Babcock, and several old and deceased friends of her mother. Thay had all gathered at the house because they were angry about the changes made to the interior. During her life, Gladys refused to allow us to touch even the wiring, which was getting in very bad condition. If she was a ghost, and could truly watch what we were doing to the house after her death, we could understand why she was hanging around and raising as much trouble as she could.
What happened after that got funny. Doris went through the house, banishing each of the spirits of her dead relatives by name, and things quieted down for a while. The dog seemed to have peace at last. But then he started behaving strangely again and we suspected that the spirits were back. What to do? We talked to Dusty the next time we saw him and he asked if we had banished every room, including the basement and the attic. We had not. So it was that Doris conducted another banishing, this time crawling around in the attic. And that seemed to do the trick.
Or so we thought.
Dusty later found the same spirits hanging out in the yard. They were bothering his dog and ours each time he was put out in the yard, so he banished them from the yard.
At the time we were having several interesting visitors at the house, many of them people who professed psychic abilities of their own. They were hearing about the strange goings on in our home and were anxious to come to see for themselves. One woman that came to visit was laughing as she entered the house. She asked if we knew that we had several spirits living on our roof. We had a good laugh about that. After being banished from the house, the basement, the attic and the yard, the only place left was the roof. We decided to let them stay there where they could do no harm.
We were novices at the ways of banishing spirits in those days. And this was sad in a way. What should have been done was that during the banishing, the spirits of all of them should have been sent off into the light so they could go through the process of reincarnation. This was fixed after we understood, although I think Gladys would have been quite happy if we had left her alone to watch over her beloved house on Deckerville Road until the end of days.
From James Donahue’s Journal
I used to joke that if ever there was going to be a haunted house, it would be the Babcock homestead at the corner of Deckerville and Hurd’s Corner Roads. That was because Doris’ mother, Gladys, lived in that house most of her life, and in the end, would never leave it for more than a few days at a time. She died in the living room while receiving hospice care.
We didn’t notice any problems during the time when Doris and Jerry were busy remodeling the house. It wasn’t until we finished the work and moved into it that we became aware that something was wrong. Our dog did not like living in the house and he spent his nights sleeping at the door of our bedroom, obviously afraid of something in the house.
After she began talking to the entities with the help of her board, and after our encounters with Dusty Flowers, we became aware of what we first thought of as “dark forces” around us in the house. Dusty gave Doris a bag of tree bark and dried sage with instruction for burning this material in a metal dish to make smoke, and then go through the house, allowing the smoke to waif through the rooms and verbally banishing the spirits by name.
That evening Doris set about to cleanse the house. She first opened the board and asked for the names of the spirits that were haunting us. We should not have been surprised that it was the spirit of her mother. What really surprised us was that she was not alone. She was accompanied by the spirits of Doris’s dead brother, Bub, a dead uncle, Harry Babcock, and several old and deceased friends of her mother. Thay had all gathered at the house because they were angry about the changes made to the interior. During her life, Gladys refused to allow us to touch even the wiring, which was getting in very bad condition. If she was a ghost, and could truly watch what we were doing to the house after her death, we could understand why she was hanging around and raising as much trouble as she could.
What happened after that got funny. Doris went through the house, banishing each of the spirits of her dead relatives by name, and things quieted down for a while. The dog seemed to have peace at last. But then he started behaving strangely again and we suspected that the spirits were back. What to do? We talked to Dusty the next time we saw him and he asked if we had banished every room, including the basement and the attic. We had not. So it was that Doris conducted another banishing, this time crawling around in the attic. And that seemed to do the trick.
Or so we thought.
Dusty later found the same spirits hanging out in the yard. They were bothering his dog and ours each time he was put out in the yard, so he banished them from the yard.
At the time we were having several interesting visitors at the house, many of them people who professed psychic abilities of their own. They were hearing about the strange goings on in our home and were anxious to come to see for themselves. One woman that came to visit was laughing as she entered the house. She asked if we knew that we had several spirits living on our roof. We had a good laugh about that. After being banished from the house, the basement, the attic and the yard, the only place left was the roof. We decided to let them stay there where they could do no harm.
We were novices at the ways of banishing spirits in those days. And this was sad in a way. What should have been done was that during the banishing, the spirits of all of them should have been sent off into the light so they could go through the process of reincarnation. This was fixed after we understood, although I think Gladys would have been quite happy if we had left her alone to watch over her beloved house on Deckerville Road until the end of days.