Posts Tagged ‘spirits’

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Would you live in a haunted house, whether it was actually documented as haunted or just known for having played one on TV?  Many actors in horror films later state in interviews that they felt a haunting presence around them when they were doing a paranormal movie and that strange things would occur while filming. If this is the case, what might occur to a home where a paranormal horror series was filmed?

American Horror Story might be the darkest and scariest show ever to play on television. Based on a haunted house that has seen horror after horror over multiple decades, each person who meets their demise in the home becomes trapped there as a ghost in a paranormal energetic grid which traps them indefinitely.  Lurking behind it all is a “big bad” invisible entity in the home with a hidden agenda that seems to prod and encourage the ghosts to do more dirty work while it seeks to manifest in full form.

It’s hard to imagine what’s to come in Season Two to bring the heat to compete with the non stop creepy action of Season One. Props to the actors including  Jessica Lange (Constance), who just received the SAG award for female actor in a drama series for the show, which airs on FX.

The six bedroom house perhaps is the unrecognized actor in the show, listed as a historic landmark with vintage decor and Tiffany glass windows completing the perfect setting for a haunted home. This home is not just a set, but an actual mansion known as the Alfred Rosenheim home and according to CBS, the Daily Mail , Huff Po and other sources, it’s going up for sale.

From what I’ve heard, the pilot of the series was filmed in the house and once it was picked up, later episodes were shot in a replica set at another location. Still, most anyone who has seen the show, would get a case of the tingles if they were able to tour the home, especially the basement…

My budgetary restrictions aside, it’s priced at a cool 4.5 million, after seeing the show, I’m not keen on living in this particular home, but if the Adams Family Mansion is on the market, I’d like to take a look.

Regardless, it is a gorgeous home and the slide show available on Huff Po displays over 25 photos of the beautiful dark wood paneling and other distinctive features of the home. See the photos here.  How about you, would you live in this house?

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Located in the peaceful landscape of the Piedmont area of North Carolina lies the town of Kernersville in the area known as the Triad.  The Triad area consists of three major cities, which include Greensboro, Winston-Salem and High Point.  Kernersville is a beautiful small town that is actively restoring and renovating its historic downtown area.  It is also the location of one of the strangest homes in the world, built in 1880.  It’s called Korner’s Folly and if I had to compare it to other strange homes, I would say that it is a miniature version of the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California. It also shares another similarity with the Winchester House, as they’re both reported to be haunted.

The original owner of Korner’s Folly was Jule Gilmer Korner. He named the home “Korner’s Folly” after a cousin, or possibly a neighbor, declared the home to be Korner’s folly. Korner was so amused by the comment that he made it the official name of the home, even going so far as to hang a plaque with that name outside the house.   Korner was a painter and interior designer and is best known for painting signs for the Bull Durham Bulls across the South. A talented artist, Korner wanted the house to be a showplace for his work, both artistically in size and scale in order to give prospective clients an idea of the various types of interior design that he could create in their homes and buildings. The house has twenty-two rooms and there’s no easy way to describe them. Each room is unique; some fit for royalty, palatial in scale. There are trap doors, over fifteen different styles of fireplaces, cubbyholes to tuck away in, murals, and a library.

I love Korner’s Folly. It reminds me of playing dress up when I was young, how one day I wanted to be a princess, another day the queen, and I’d rotate from the Victorian age, the Roaring Twenties, to holding court in the Middle Ages. Living in Korner’s Folly would have been like a living in a dollhouse to play every dress- up game I could imagine. How much fun the children must have had growing up here!  While I was immediately entranced with the whimsical parts of the home, I must also say that it has elegant touches; murals, a striking reception room, and a wonderful little theatre named Cupid’s Park.  Korner’s Folly grabbed me at the front door; it’s simply enchanting.

None of the twenty-two rooms look the same in any way.  There are three floors and seven levels to the home, some with ceilings as low as six feet while other ceilings reach heights of over twenty-five feet.  Hallways have different sizes; some are quite narrow and the effect can be striking as you follow a passageway into a new room, some with doorways over ten feet tall. Extensively detailed woodwork is displayed in every room.  A winding staircase takes you from floor to floor and on the fourth floor is the first private children’s little theater in the United States. The effect of it all is stunning. Jule Korner was definitely talented and had a wonderful artistic eye.  The architecture and antique furniture that he designed is visible throughout the home.   Korner’s paintings are on display in the home.

The home has been wonderfully preserved. Several locals in the area told me that the house once served as an antique store and also a funeral home in the past. The spirits are very active at the house and paranormal investigators continue to find evidence of ghostly activity. While I visited Korner’s Folly, it was decorated for the Christmas holidays. I felt ghostly activity and energy around the Christmas decorations and detected them moving slightly back and forth on several occasions. Perhaps the ghost children were at play, looking to see if Christmas presents would soon be on display for them. During your visit to Korner’s Folly, expect to be charmed and enchanted by the beauty, the whimsy and the playful spirits. For more about my visit to Korner’s Folly, check out my new book, Ghosthunting North Carolina.

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Ghosthunting North Carolina with Kala

Ghosthunting North Carolina is now available in Stores, Online and through Kindle and Nook Ghosthunting North Carolina By Kala Ambrose I’ll be traveling all around the state of North Carolina for book signings, so if you’re here in NC, come see me and pick up a copy of the book at your favorite local bookstore. My travel schedule is posted on ExploreYourSpirit.com  Ghosthunting North Carolina is part of a Haunted Travel Series called America’s Haunted Road Trip Ghosthunting North Carolina provides maps and travel information so you can research the haunted sites for yourself. Jump in the car with some friends and hit the road and explore with Kala as your guide.  It’s a lonely process writing a book, months, really years go by and for many writers like myself, we struggle and strain to express what we want to say in so many words. Many times we return to look over the completed project and fight an overwhelming desire to toss the entire manuscript away. Fortunately for most of us, we have a wonderful family member or friend who talks us back down and gently eases the manuscript from our clenched hands and soothingly reminds us that they think the book is wonderful.Once this process is complete and the book has been shipped off to the publisher, the editing process begins, the cover art is selected and the countdown begins for the launch of the book. The first day of a book release is quite different than movie or music releases. Books go deep, the person has to open the cover and enter privately into a journey page by page. Typically there are no stars turning out for the event dressed in their red carpet best and only rarely do screaming hordes of fans line up for days in advance to buy the book like they once did for CD’s.I wanted to write Ghosthunting North Carolina for several reasons. The first being that I love history and have always thought that more people would be interested in history if they were able to hear the stories in a more interesting way. History is provocative, rife with struggles, pain and the overwhelming desire of people to survive and make their way in life against all types of obstacles. When the stories are told with the people in mind, the reader can not help but to be interested and the stories themselves are timeless, as each generation faces similar struggles. Only the names, uniforms and dates change, as the human condition marches on. As someone who has seen and communicated with the spirit world since childhood, I also relished the idea of investigating these haunted sites for myself in order to see if I would experience the paranormal anomalies and ghostly apparitions that others have reported at each location. I wanted to tell these dead men and women’s tales and allow their voices to be heard.  North Carolina is a fascinating and very haunted state. The Coast of East Carolina has more shipwrecks than anywhere else in the U.S. due to the shifting sandbars and rocky coastline which has claimed hundreds of ships through the years. From the pirate ghosts of Blackbeard and his crew wandering the beaches, to the missing colony of Roanoke and other colonists who dreamed of a better life here in the New World, the coast is haunted with their presence and their stories. You don’t have to be from North Carolina to appreciate these stories, as the ghosts share their history of our America, from the battleships, battlefields and forts to the shifting sands of time and place where they lay their heads each night. I also loved the concept of this series of books, which is called America’s Haunted Road Trip. The publisher is in the process of creating a Ghosthunting book for each of the 50 states and when I took on this project, I saw it as the opportunity to be a Haunted History Ambassador for the state of North Carolina.  I was able to share my personal experiences about the history of this state, including spending the night in the most haunted State Capitol in the U.S. and spending many nights in one of the most haunted hotels in the state.  In many of the locations I write about, I encountered and at times communicated with the spirits who still haunt this location. Their stories are waiting to be told and I invite you to take this journey with me and with them through Ghosthunting North Carolina. I also share the experience of having a ghost who decided to take this journey with me and stayed with me while I wrote this book. He would pop into my office from time to time as if he became the unofficial editor of the book, checking in on me and my progress. While I expected to encounter a variety of ghosts while researching this book, this was one surprise that even caught me off guard. Fall is here, the evenings are growing cooler, the sunlight is mellowing a little more each day into a golden glow and soon October and Halloween will be upon us.  Curl up next to some candlelight and take this journey with me as we ghosthunt our way through North Carolina. We’ll start on the rocky coast of the Atlantic Ocean, venture into the haunted plantations of the Piedmont and complete our journey in the misty Blue Ridge mountains. You’ll never look at North Carolina in the same way again and it may leave you with the desire to jump in the car and come investigate these areas for yourself.

Go Ghosthunting with Kala So come explore with me, here’s how….. 1. Ghosthunting North Carolina is available at bookstores including Indie stores in North Carolina and in Barnes and Noble and Costco.2. The book is available online through Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com3. Ghosthunting North Carolina is also available through Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook. 4. Get a signed first edition copy of the book and chat with me about the haunted history of North Carolina as I travel across the state through September and October at bookstores, museums, Costco’s and other locations. 5. Watch the video book trailer of GhostHunting North Carolina and share it with friends. 6. Go to www.GhostHuntingNorthCarolina.com and share your most haunting experience with me on my post there asking about your favorite ghost stories. I’ll also be updating information and events regarding the book here along the way. 7. Join me on Facebook and Twitter and chat with me about the book and if you have the time and inclination, I would greatly appreciate a review of the book on Amazon.com 8. For more behind the scenes tips on paranormal investigations, take my video course on the Learning Annex called Sensing the Spirit World: Adventures in Ghosthunting with Kala Ambrose. Until the next time we meet, Happy Haunting! *~Kala~*

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This Summer I visited the Northeast on my Gypsy Wagon Road Trip. Over the past few weeks, I’ve shared my adventures at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY and my journey in NYC and filming at the Learning Annex. Here’s the last leg of this adventure…

After leaving Manhattan, I headed through Western New York over to the Village of LilyDale, which is near Niagara Falls. My good friend Elizabeth Harper and I were scheduled to teach about Auras, Chakras and Energy Bodies here at LilyDale and we were excited to be part of LilyDale’s Summer Teaching Program.

Established in 1879, Lily Dale has been the world’s largest center for the practice of the Spiritualist religion. For 132 years, Lily Dale has offered a summer program of lectures, workshops and other activities featuring best-selling authors, leaders in academic and scientific research into psychic phenomena, as well as the world’s most powerful mediums, teachers and healers.

Located in upstate New York, this serene 19th century lakeside community is very charming, surrounded by a towering, old-growth forest and filled with cottages throughout the village.

I enjoyed teaching at LilyDale and we had a wonderful group of people there at the event. As Elizabeth and I were setting up for our workshop, we both commented on how we could feel the spirits in the area present and how they were “waiting”, ready to speak to any medium who wished to communicate with them. I acknowledged their presence but explained that I was here to speak to the workshop participants about their personal auras and not to engage in mediumship at this event.

About 30 minutes into the workshop, I noticed a man in spirit form appear in front of me while I was speaking to the group. As Elizabeth began to speak and share the next segment of information about our workshop, the man continued to stand in front of me, giving me a stern look with his arms folded in front of him. I realized that he wasn’t going to go away until I acknowledged him, so I looked up at him and met his gaze. Once he had my attention, he said, “State your business here” and I understood that he was a guardian of some capacity here at LilyDale. His clothes and hairstyle reflected a time around the 1930′s I would say and the feeling that I had is that he has been here a long time and is involved in the communications between the spirits and the mediums in many events at LilyDale.

After communicating with him at that moment, he disappeared and I went back to teaching the workshop. Once the event was over, we were packing up the Gypsy Wagon to head over to Pittsburgh to teach there the next day.

As I sat in the driver’s seat of the car, preparing to leave LilyDale that evening, a light rain began to fall. Looking up, I noticed a man standing outside my car window. Thinking it was the wonderful gentleman who had helped with all of the arrangements that evening, I lowered my window to thank him again for all that he had done. As I lowered my window, I saw it was not this man, but rather the man in spirit again, who wanted me to know that he was still here and watching over everything in the Village. He was still as stern as ever and took his job very seriously.

I have no doubt that should I return to LilyDale for another event, that he will be there to speak with me again.

During my road trip, I made my first visit to Pittsburgh, PA where I taught about the Seven Healing Techniques used in the Ancient Mystery Schools. I met the most beautiful souls in Pittsburgh, and we had a wonderful time together as we explored the ancient wisdom teachings and worked with a variety of energy healing tools and techniques including spending time in my copper pyramid.

I stayed in downtown Pittsburgh on the river and we were there on July 4th. This gave us a fantastic view of the fireworks display over the river. I really enjoyed seeing the beautiful architecture in Pittsburgh, so much detail was put into every building. It made me ache to see this again in our construction, why don’t we make beautiful architectural buildings like these today?

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In Feng Shui there is a way to drive out and protect your home from bad spirits. The method I am about to describe requires that you get a double blade dagger. In Tibet they use purbas, or triple blade daggers. It also requires that you take the compass reading of your front door. The way to do the compass reading is to stand in your doorway and face out. Then read on the compass the direction you are facing. You will either be facing North, Northeast, East, Southeast, South, Southwest, West, or Northwest.

Once you have done the compass reading, you need to draw the floorplan of your house. Then draw a tic-tac-toe grid over the floorplan dividing it up into equal areas. Then you need to mark off the compass direction of each of the areas. Your house will have a North area, a Northeast area, an East area, a Southeast area, a South area, a Southwest area, a West area, and a Northwest area. In addition, because of the tic-tac-toe map, your house will have a center area. This operation doesn’t deal with the center area of your house.

The tic-tac-toe map in Chinese is called the Lo Shu map. There are eight Lo Shu maps, one for each of the eight possible door facings as determined by making a compass reading. In other words, there is a Lo Shu map for a house whose front door faces North, a Lo Shu map for a house whose front door faces Northeast, a Lo Shu Map for a house whose front door faces East, and so on. In each of the Lo Shu maps there are eight auguries, one for each of the eight compass directions. Of these eight auguries there is one called Six Demons. It is Six Demons that we wish to cure so that your home becomes calm and settled, and less prone to mishaps.

If your front door looks out to the *North*, the area called Six Demons is the Northwest corner of the house.
If your front door looks out to the *Northeast*, the area called Six Demons is the East corner of the house.
If your front door looks out to the *East*, the area called Six Demons is the Northeast corner of the house.
If your front door looks out to the *Southeast*, the area called Six Demons is the West corner of the house.
If your front door looks out to the *South*, the area called Six Demons is the Southwest corner of the house.
If your front door looks out to the *Southwest*, the area called Six Demons is the South corner of the house.
If your front door looks out to the *West*, the area called Six Demons is the Southeast corner of the house.
If your front door looks out to the *Northwest*, the area called Six Demons is the North corner of the house.

If your house has land around it, go outside and bury the dagger about a foot underground at the appropriate corner of your house. The dagger should be aligned so that it points in the direction away from the corner. For example, if you bury the dagger at the North corner of the house, the dagger will point exactly to the North. The dagger must always point away from the house, not toward it.

If you live in an apartment, you can drive the dagger into the appropriate corner of the apartment, along the floor. You also can get a nail and drive it into the corner at the floor for the same affect.

This little known method does settle the energy in the house. I’ve used it many times, and it works.

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T. Raphael Simons was a guest on The Explore Your Spirit with Kala Show
Listen to his interview here: http://exploreyourspirit.com/Media/shows1.shtml#SIMONSFENGSHUI1

More about T. Raphael Simons…

T. Raphael Simons is a psychic reader, astrologer (Western and Chinese forms), feng shui expert, hypnotherapist and life coach and is  available for consultations and counseling in person and by telephone. Author of Feng Shui, Step by Step, Feng Shui Strategies for Business Success: Arranging Your Office for Success and Prosperity, and The Feng Shui of Love, his interest in the metaphysical sciences and arts began in 1970, he first learned to read Tarot cards in 1971 and took up reading them professionally in 1977. From there he studied astrology for seven years with Ivy Jacobson beginning in 1980. In 1988 he took up the study of Chinese astrology and fengshui with Terry Lee in New York and has been practicing and teaching Chinese astrology and fengshui ever since. He also trained in channeling in New York with the medium Alex Murray. Since 1999 Raphael has been a member of OBOD (the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids), the most ancient bardic and druid order in the UK in which he was elected a full member in the Druid grade. Raphael has been living in Durham, North Carolina since 2003, moving to NC from New York City. Originally trained as a musician, he taught music at Princeton University and Oberlin College.  For more information or questions about a Chinese astrological reading and/or Feng Shui consultation, contact Raphael Simons www.psychicarts.net

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