Daily PSI Testing

You want to know if you're psychic? Well, daily online testing isn't likely to answer that so much as teach you how to develop your inherent skills. We all have unlimited psychic potential, but our brains have not been practicing the connections. If you practice archery every day, you will eventually get proficient at it. It goes without saying that anything you apply yourself to regularly, you will begin to excel at it. Psychics have nothing different than other people except that they worked their skills more over the years. I personally attribute my abilities to an interesting combination of having to be ahead of a family that was very dysfunctional, growing up digging up relics from the Civil War and handling them, as well as visiting historic sites often, spending a healthy amount of time alone to contemplate and commune with my environment, and some delightful brain issues such as being spatially gifted and time synesthetic and having facial amnesia. Perhaps this has all come together in a menagerie that had me using those connections in my brain and developing them. There is no reason why, as a full grown adult we cannot develop our skills through regular practice. In fact, I'm working on a book "From Fledgling to Full-Fledged Psychic" about this subject.

I suggest you go on daily to do PSI testing. I go to Dean Radin's wonderful site. I suggest you try testing in the morning, afternoon and evening to see if here is a circadian rhythm to your talents. Then, I want you to figure out what you do in your body and mind when you pick the right one--was it a feeling of seeing the card before turning it, or was it the very first one you chose without thinking or did you run the cursor over it and feel where it felt different? Did you body feel tight? Relaxed? Excited? When you find out how your mind and body work when you choose the right ones, you will begin to know how it will feel when you are having a psychic premonition.

Report back.

Don't forget tonight is Ghost Hunters--new episode

"Phasma Ex Machina" (aka "Ghost From the Machine") Reviewed

You know that beautiful lover, has all the elements from symmetry to grace, charm to attraction, and then you climb into bed and it all goes, well, unsatisfying?

Yeah, it's kinda like that.

I waited a long time for this movie to come out on DVD. See the trailer? Cool premise, huh? It had tiny itty bitty moments of true chills and excitement and then it just never came to fruition. It was horribly written, amateur acting, very little sound effects or audio suspense. Even the director seemed confused by what he was making.

It begins with a main character possessed to build this machine, but you have no sense of his passion. You only see him working day and night, but no emotion about it whatsoever and you don't know his motivation until the movie is almost over. It fell super flat!

The concept was great, and I could see the potential for so many seriously emotionally moving moments and super terror, but between the poor directing, acting, and writing, I didn't feel the least bit moved by it at all, even in moments that should have been truly touching. I felt no connection at all.

I give the movie 1-1/2 autumn leaves out of 4. Horrible directing, acting, writing, great concept. If it comes out on Netflix, watch it, but don't go and buy it. Really, once is all you need or want to see it.

Conclusion: Attractive lover, miserable in bed.

Dark Matters: Twisted But True

(Philadelphia Experiment)

I adore Science Channel. This show, "Dark Matters: Twisted But True" (and the show "Through the Wormhole") are the kinds of things that totally curl my toes. I love this stuff! I live for it! This is why I have this blog to discuss theories and cool concepts!

Tonight it premieres--August 31 at 10 pm on the Science Channel. Do not miss it!

"Troll Hunter" Reviewed

#1--I'm Norwegian and I SOOOOOO get their horror movies!
#2--I am a troll freak!

Those are the reasons I was thrilled about seeing this movie.

Having seen it, I give it an Autumnforest rating of....3 autumn leaves out of 4.

I can't with a good conscience give it 4 of 4. "Jaws" got that and it's a rare movie that can get a rating where it satisfied all my needs.

I'd suggest you think "Cloverfield" in Norwegian countryside. If you see the freaking movie for the scenery only--you will be enthralled and gasping. I feel such a kinship with their Northwest USA looking clothing, wet damp, glacial lakes, low hanging clouds, extreme bright greens, white stark snow scenes, dirty cars, messy coats, unshaven faces. I wanted to jump into the movie and drive around in the hero's badass truck and chase trolls! In fact, I have a monster crush on the man who played the Troll Hunter.

The story was not a novel concept; college students chase after a man to find that he is hunting trolls and he invites them along to see and film it. The government is keeping a secret from the Norwegian people. A BIG one!

I found strange undertones of the Sami people (Laplanders) and the government treatment of them, including the little jab about that the trolls can smell the blood of Christians and it makes them mad, as if the indigenous people were heathens. I don't know if anyone intended it, but I definitely got the vibes.

What I really loved about the movie is that they took this old legendary creature and made it feasible within the countryside and almost, well, possible. I got so caught up in it, I felt like I was watching a mythology come to life.

Watch in the dark. Have an icy cold beer. Turn up the air-conditioner. Turn on the fan. Huddle under a blanket. Imagine the chilly magical land of Norway and await the storming trolls!

Chuppies Everywhere!

There's been a spat of chupacabra captures/dead carcasses. Well, supposed chuppies.


Wikipedia: The chupacabras[1] (Spanish pronunciation: [tʃupaˈkaβɾas], from chupar "to suck" and cabra "goat", literally "goat sucker") is a legendary cryptid rumored to inhabit parts of the Americas. It is associated more recently with sightings of an allegedly unknown animal in Puerto Rico (where these sightings were first reported), Mexico, and the United States, especially in the latter's Latin American communities.[2] The name comes from the animal's reported habit of attacking and drinking the blood of livestock, especially goats.

Physical descriptions of the creature vary. Eyewitness sightings have been claimed as early as 1995 in Puerto Rico, and have since been reported as far north as Maine, and as far south as Chile, and even being spotted outside the Americas in countries like Russia and The Philippines. It is supposedly a heavy creature, the size of a small bear, with a row of spines reaching from the neck to the base of the tail.

Biologists and wildlife management officials view the chupacabras as a contemporary legend.


The "traditional" Puerto Rican Chuppies were bad-ass. Described as a demon with wings, red eyes, sharp teeth, drinking blood, his description changed to a more canine-like creature here in America.


Here's a cool article about the Puerto Rican version.


So far, encounters in Texas and the Southwest with these creatures (when they're alive) have not been at all angry or threatening. Not like the reports one hears in Puerto Rico where livestock are found dead and drained of blood.



Mange in coyotes and dogs, as well as foxes are the explanation for chuppie sightings.


Mange: Tiny mites that burrowing the hair follicles of animals and resulting in hair loss. This is spread by animals. In areas where there is livestock and domestic dogs as well as wild canines like coyotes intermixing, the spread of the disease can be rampant. These animals that have been caught, especially the ones commonly found in Texas, seem to be very real animals with cases of mange. It might even be possible to backtrack and find outbreaks of mange on farms to determine where the origins of some of these creatures are. It would seem from recent reports mostly coming from Texas, that a simple check of the rates of mange in domestic pets and livestock would support the mange explanation. I find it very telling that so many are coming from Texas which says to me that this could very well be an outbreak of the mite there.

What Horror Movies Am I Excited About?

I just bought "Insidious" because I really enjoyed "Dead Silence" and there aren't enough moody horror movies that have tons of atmosphere, creepy dolls, and scary music. It wasn't original, but it satisfied me more than anything I've seen that's new all year.

I pre-ordered a horror movie that I have never seen. Yes, I bought it without seeing it because it's my two favorite things--Scandinavian horror and trolls! The review will be up this afternoon.

Hammer Films is back at it again (I've waited forever!!!) They know how to do moody, creepy, haunting shit. This upcoming movie is so atmospheric--I want to jump in it and live in that world. That's when a movie has me riveted--when it creates a place I want to be a part of. The remake of Sherlock Holmes and The Wolf Man did that for me, created worlds I wanted to linger in, but the plots were kind of lame. I'm hoping that this movie doesn't end up a snooze like "Turn of the Screw" or "The Others." What I see in this trailer makes me think it might end up being my favorite horror of all time. Just look at this one coming out in February, "The Woman in Black"




"Phasma Ex Machina" or "Ghost From the Machine" is one I watched the last couple years to see where it went and how it developed. I just found out it's on DVD, so guess what I just got in the mail? Just look at this trailer and tell me if you aren't curious about this one? As a ghost hunter, I'm very excited about it. I'm watching it tonight and will be reviewing it excitedly!



Here's a remake I'm willing to give a try. "Fright Night"



Here's a remake I don't think I want to see... "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark"

What Makes a Great Zombie Story?

The movie "28 Days Later" was a very well done zombie movie. However, if you were to take out the opening about the Rage virus and just started us with the hero waking up in the hospital bed, not knowing what the hell happened to England and all the people, it would have changed the terror of the story all together to a new height. We would have been pitched into the unknown with him. However, with the audience having this virus insight, we knew what happened the minute the hero faced an empty hospital.

In "Night of the Living Dead," we had some hints of a meteor or hell running out of room, but we never really knew why the world was upturned. It's that cut off from information, not sure what's happening that is horrifying. Just remember on 9-11 when we didn't know if planes were safe, subways, buses, malls, or how big this entire hit on America would be.

A great zombie story needs a few elements:

1. Lack of help from the outside. We're on our own here!
2. Lack of information. No radios, TV, saviors.
3. Difficult logistics. Dwindling supplies, being trapped, being surrounded.
4. Difficulty amongst the uninfected. Sometimes your worst enemy might be in your own group--someone has to make the job of staying alive more difficult than it already is.
5. Questionable future. We should never know how this thing ends or if it ends or if anyone even survives--a zombie apocalypse is never neat and tidy.

It goes without saying that a zombie movie will have the consuming of human flesh by the undead, but some movies completely depend on the graphics of that truth to shock, but they tend to leave us rather numb. The story is not so much that the zombies eat us, but how we evade such an eventuality. What are their abilities? What are our odds? Can having human intelligence beat the very natural animal need to feed? Ultimately, are we outnumbered?

Many directors and writers have worked to bring alive the story of the zombie in such a way that we say, "that was a great zombie story," but I think most would have to agree that the truly best was Romero's "Night of the Living Dead" and what it had going for it (besides the elements described above) was timing. At the time that it came out, it was a new terror, a new enemy, and the enemy was us!

The theme for zombie stories always comes down to the basic, "ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances." We see this in times like 9-11 where people show their true colors under stress. The truth of the matter in such circumstances is that sometimes good people trying to help others will be killed and this is a circumstance you find in a lot of zombie films and books, the martyr (the teenagers in "Night of the Living Dead"). There is also the gun-happy scared man in most stories, the guy who is such a trigger finger and so paranoid, he is likely to hurt us all (the father in "Night of the Living Dead."). There is always the one person who is useless in an emergency situation and may end up weighing down the group due to injury or mental breakdown (Barbara in "Night of the Living Dead"). Lastly, you have the hero who is trying not to feel anything about the situation, but work like a machine to make it work, the natural born leader (the hero in "Night of the Living Dead") You might also need to contain within the story those who are expendable (the mother in "Night of the Living Dead") and those who are infected (the little girl in "Night of the Living Dead").

Zombie stories come and go, but what we always look for consistently is not what the zombies are up to, but how the humans are handling it. It is like facing our greatest fears, that those humans around us suddenly become psychopaths.

Zombie Crafts People--Wanna Be in a Book?

Julie and I's book, "Zombie Housewives of the Apocalypse" will have pages throughout the book of zombie housekeeping tips and recipes and we also would like to scatter throughout the book pages showcasing zombie craftsperson's wares, dolls, clothing, art, whatever. So, if you have a zombie-themed business and sell them, let us know. We might just feature you in our printed book.
ghosthuntingtheories@gmail.com

Dale the Doll: Of Course She Doesn't Take Me!

So, I was going through the laptop while The Human was asleep. I found some disturbing pictures, like this one...



Sure, it could be anywhere, but it does look suspiciously like a resort to me!



This picture of The Human and Ms Julie could be taken anywhere, I know, but still something is bothering me. She went away a few days and came back and seems strangely relaxed.



Now, I'm certain she went to some resort and this has me very angry! She takes me to abandoned places and ghost hunts, but not to a resort? After all I've done for her! I think it might just be time for a little lesson....

Zombie Housewives of the Apocalypse

So, Julie and I did the photo shoot for our book "Zombie Housewives of the Apocalypse" in 114 degree heat with humidity. After nearly passing out and losing my breakfast, I rehydrated in the car with the air conditioning on and we took off for the resort for a 2-night stay and a working vacation. We went over the photos and content of the book and sent off the proposal while going over the edit for our "Kickin Up Dust! (Getting Lost To Find Ourselves)" book. We did manage some fun times (as you probably noticed in Friday's "Drunk Ghost Story" video).



There is a post going up tomorrow morning asking for zombie craftspeople to come forward. We are hoping to promote zombie products in the book. The book will also include drink mix recipes by Liz the martini-swilling housewife and housekeeping tips like how to get blood out of clothing by Stella the perfect June Cleaver housewife. There will be lots of pics of the zombie women in their 1950s post-apocalyptic zombie housewife roles and lots of enjoyable fun. Wish us luck. It started out as a zombie shoot for the Blogger Virtual Zombie Walk (see button on the left) and it turned out to be a book!

Exciting ESP Research--Proof of ESP!

Take the time to watch these and you will be blown away. This is so exciting and I am thrilled to see that science is taking ESP more seriously. It's not woo-woo and it's not some kind of paranormal thing, it is perfectly naturally a part of our abilities, just like our ability to conceptualize our own consciousness and importance, life and mortality, God concept and more.

If you don't have time to see all of them, see the last one--amazing experiment!

Vay-Cay is Over: Marriott Buttes Resort Review

If you missed it--be sure and see my Drunk Ghost Story. It was, ah, interesting.

I will not be staying at the Marriott Buttes Resort again. It is an amazing set up inside the buttes and beautiful, but very very cheesy. The walls are thin and it's noisy, they charge $10 a day to park and $15 a day for Internet. Mind you, that have enormous parking lots and it's not in the city so charging to park? WTF???? Even freaking Days Inn is free parking, Internet and continental breakfast! Okay, so not going there again. Greatly disappointed that a resort is not more inclusive. Next time, we'll do our working vay-cay in another resort. The view, however, was nice.


So, no, there is no man to vacation with, but my dear friend, Julie, and I went to the resort together for 2 days. A working vacation--working on finishing up two books together and sending in a proposal for one of them.


Oh, we managed to get to the pool and have a good time, some fine dining, some luxuriating, some room service and, well, you saw yesterday the Drunk Ghost Story. I also filmed a Drunk Urban Legends the next night which will be shown in a week or so.


Back to work, but I at least got some very very much needed R&R and a great perspective of what a vacation could be like. In all those decades of marriage, my vacations were referred to as the "hostage situation." It was great to be myself, have fun and treat myself well. I am one happy gal.

I love my co-author and best buddy, Julie, but next vacation, I seriously would like a man with me so I can find out what a real couples vacation should be like.

Inspirational Saturday: Life Is a Highway

(Tom Cochrane "Life is a Highway")

Here's how I see it. Life is a highway. It's got hills. It's got turns. It's got narrowing. It is scenic. It is monotonous.

There's two kinds of people in this world:

Ones who use the potholes as proof the whole highway sucks.

Ones who realize they've driven 50 miles without hitting a pothole and the highway is safe.

Which one are you?

Drunk Ghost Story: Resurrection Mary

I love the "Drunk History" videos so much, I decided I needed to try one of my own twist. Haven't been drunk in over a decade and this is probably why...

Warning: Do not use this for educational purposes.

**No lonely on a Friday night tonight--be back next week**

Hair Thingie, Tumbleweeds and Rocks!

(At a resort-Hey, we earned it!)


This was after the zombie photo shoot in the parking lot preparing to go to lunch. I had nearly passed out from the heat and nearly vomited at the same time. Couldn't decide which would win out. So, I sucked down 3 water bottles fast and sat inside the car with the air blasting. It was about 114 today??? Not a great temperature for a zombie shoot. It went well in spite of those conditions.




***No Lonely on a Friday Night tonight. Julie and I will be having a working vacation.***

Zombies Are Happening!

Remember this place Julie and I went to not too long ago? It is referred to as the "Slaughterhouse." It is a very cool abandoned farmhouse. It is also the location of a photo shoot we are on today. In fact, following the photo shoot, we are staying for a few nights at a local resort where we will enjoy the swim-up bar and the fantastic restaurant that is built into the rocks. We will also be doing a follow-up study at a cemetery where I have gotten photographic phenomena for over 8 years and bringing in an expert to give some input to what's going on.

Don't worry. We will be plugged in the entire time. We are going over the final edit of "Kickin' Up Dust! (Getting Lost To Find Ourselves)" book and working on the next book, "Zombie Housewives of the Apocalypse" which will be a fun book mocking 1950s housewives by making them post-apocalyptic zombies. Julie will be playing "Stella," the June Cleaver perfect 1950s wife and I will be playing "Liz" the martini-swilling Valley-of-the-Dolls housewife.

We will also plot out the next book in our queue--"Spirit Vessels: Why Some Buildings Are Haunted."

You can expect even more craziness from the two of us. Julie has a book in at the editor's called "Dead and Buried in the Arizona Desert" and I expect it to be picked up because it's just such a totally cool book!

Perhaps I will post some pool pics of us or some pics of us in our room at the resort. In fact, I've asked Julie if she might like to do a little video of me that y'all might just enjoy. I think it'll make you laugh, though it might make me barf. That's all I'm gonna say...

Winner of the Syfy Giveaway Announced!

Congratulations LEWIS POWELL IV

Please contact me at ghosthuntingtheories@gmail.com and I will contact you this evening about your prize.

Theory Soup

**At noon EST, I will have a post up with the winner of the contest from yesterday**

I have to admit that my questions and correlations seem to take me to a place that I’m certain others must have visited; the realm of tectonics/geology/paranormal/human minds. I don’t think this is a new observation by man, or else Stonehenge and Machu Pichu might never have been built. The question is, what theories are out there?

Here are some theories I’ve found that can perhaps tie together the findings I’ve had on haunted sites in my last post pertaining to paranormal clusters. You can look these theories up in Wikipedia for more info:

“Tectonic Strain Theory”
The brainchild of Michael Persinger, a researcher in cognitive neuroscience. This hypothesis ties together such phenomenon as UFOs, religious experiences, and other paranormal experiences. Persinger argued that strain within the earth's crust near seismic faults produces intense electromagnetic (EM) fields, creating bodies of light that some interpret as glowing UFOs. Alternatively, he argued that the EM fields generate hallucinations in the temporal lobe, based on images from popular culture, of alien craft, beings, communications, or creatures. When you hear TAPS talking about EMF causing hallucinations, feelings of being watched, and such, this is what they’re talking about.

“Electromagnetic Field Theory of Consciousness”
This theory was proposed by Susan Pockett, Johnjoe McFadden, and E. Roy John. This theory says that the electromagnetic field generated by the brain (measurable by electrocorticography) is the actual carrier of conscious experience. Locating consciousness in the brain's EM field, rather than the neurons, has the advantage of neatly accounting for how information located in millions of neurons scattered throughout the brain can be unified into a single conscious experience (sometimes called the binding problem): the information is unified in the EM field. In this way EM field consciousness can be considered to be 'joined-up information'.

“Quantum Mind Theories”
Quantum mind theories are based on the premise that quantum mechanics is necessary to fully understand the mind and brain, particularly concerning an explanation of consciousness. This approach is considered a minority opinion in science, although it does have the support of the well-known Roger Penrose, who has proposed a quantum mind theory in conjunction with Stuart Hameroff. Karl H. Pribram and Henry Stapp have also proposed variations.

Lots of questions, lots of theories. Some day, someone’s going to tie it all together into something we can not only weigh and measure but repeat and control. I can hardly wait!

GIVEAWAY! "Ghost Hunters" Credit Where Credit is Due

(Giveaway details at the end of this post)




Tonight begins a new season of GH on Syfy Channel. Hey, BTW, I really like the commercial with J&G walking down the street and looking up at the funky house. Very nice, guys!

I do ridicule the concept of research teams on television--research is not entertainment, but there have been some very good points to having GH on the air for so many years and they have had some very wicked cool moments, so I plan to honor that today.

When GH started, I was hunting and I laughed at the concept of someone wanting to watch ghost hunting. It's a bit like watching grass grow. However, TAPS did 3 very cool things for the industry by airing this show:

1. No longer did ghost hunters feel the need to be hush-hush about why they went to work groggy the next day. Ghost hunting was a legitimate interest and even kind of "cool."

2. They made it possible for the average Joe at home to see creepy places, sit in the dark, see what it's like to have something unexplained occur and how it baffles the mind and makes us hunters possessed to experience it again and again and again.

3. They also, thankfully, made "debunking" a household word. Not many teams would go out and assume it's explainable and then decide they're baffled. Most would go out expecting phenomena and they'll find it, even if it actually is a board squeaking outside the window or a rattling pipe.

With the new season kicking off tonight, Syfy is offering through my blog, a giveaway of a GH t-shirt and season 3 on DVD. If you want recall what was kick-ass about season 3, let me list my favorite moments that to me struck a chord in the ghost hunting world as quite typical of hauntings:

Birdcage Theater, Tombstone AZ: When we were there, we got some good EVPs, some atmospheric changes, lots of noises and disembodied voices. When TAPS was there, they saw the infamous lady in white descending the stairs, also heard footsteps and other sounds, had a cord jump from a bell it was wrapped atop of, and got some awesome EVPs. That building is seriously disturbed and it sounds like they hit it on a very good night.

Copper Queen Hotel in Bisbee, AZ: The pulling of the bedspread on top of Grant's feet as he slept it a really common feature. In fact, in a hotel in Prescott, AZ, I had something tuck my sheets back under the mattress for me, making me wake up to the frantic feeling of being pinned to the bed.

The Stanley Hotel, Estes Park, CO: Although I think the glass breaking was a natural event, Jason's closet making a ruckus and door opening and closing was a very common type of haunting feature.

Ireland, Attack of the Irish Elemental: This episode was seriously awesome. I liked the confirmation between the team about the shimmering face trying to appear and reappear and Dustin taking a dive was pretty interesting. The way he described it and the way he felt was very much like a sort of impact encounter. Some people see these things as evil and harmful, but truth be told, they usually have the features of something rushing at or through a person and with enough force to knock them out or throw them back, but there's no reason to think something wanted to kick their ass, only that there was a fantastic force that occurred an the person was just in the right place at the wrong time. As well the footsteps were very clearly caught and very much like the ones I heard as a kid in the Civil War hospital where I was raised.

Manson Murders CA: I was intrigued at the time with the KII use, but have learned since using it that air conditioners going on can trigger it and it will go on and off so long as the unit is running, so I'm not sure what they were talking to, but they did get some sweet EVPs!

Waverly Hills Sanatorium, KY: I'm think, if I recall right, this was on the one where both G&J saw a figure that looked to be in scrubs tuck down and get sucked out of the room. That kind of weird flashing image and strange movement is common with apparitions.

GIVEAWAY: Syfy is giving away to one of my followers a t-shirt and season 3 on DVD of "Ghost Hunters." As usually, good old Dale the Doll will be drawing a name from the basket. So, comment below and be a follower. Leave your comment by midnight EST tonight and tomorrow at noon EST, Dale will pull a name and announce the winner. Thanks Syfy for remembering your viewers are devoted fans! American Citizens only (Syfy rules)

Sex and the Single Ghost Hunter: Kiss and Tell!

(art above by Jeremy--a great artist and, no, I haven't kissed him! Jeez!)

I haven't done an entry in this "sex and a single ghost hunter" in a while. I figured it was time to finally write one about something I daydream about every single day.

I kissed my first boy in first grade, David Love. My older sister threatened to tell mom, so I threatened I'd tell mom where she hid her Marlboro's.

The sassy auburn gal showed herself even then.

Males have intrigued me since I was a little girl. I had a crazy relationship with them. I was a tomboy, so they'd hang with me, but I was also attracted to them, so I wanted to beat the shit out of them in tennis and basketball and kiss the breath out of them at the same time. Any physical contact in sports was welcome. They even smelled good when they sweat.

As we reached adolescence, they would wonder what kissing was about. Oh yes, I had to try kissing the boys I grew up with, so D, D, D, and B all got a chance to learn on their tomboy friend. Lots of fun, but closed-mouth kissing at that juncture.

Teens were made for kissing because many were not quite ready for the big "dive" into total adulthood with sex. So, hours could be spent in lengthy kissing sessions, probably leaving the boys with blue balls and us girls weak and barely able to cool it down before clothes went flying. Depending on how good the kisser was, he could get a girl's thighs to fly open easily.

And kisses are the best way to know a man. I've found a direct correlation between the way a man kisses and the way he makes love including the degree by which he attends to the task, the time he gives it, the tightness or looseness of the kiss, and the ability to be creative and novel. His cadence, his ability to relinquish some power and dynamics come into play, as do sometimes his distraction, short attention span, and desire to end it quickly which can be quite telling, as well.

Middle-aged women will tell you that not kissing them enough is almost always the sign that the marriage is going bye-bye. One friend in a marriage that was dying of affection, met a man in a bar and sat in her car, kissing him for an hour. She told me in great detail about what it was like and I wasn't shocked this woman, who was married the same length of time I was, had gone out and kissed some stranger from a bar. Instead, my gut clenched with something I almost never feel in relation to others--complete and utter envy. You see, men don't have to make out with their woman once they have them, but new men do have to go through that kissing and making out period with the woman. In an ideal world, a woman would pick a new man every 1 year around the time when teasing it out of her is gone. In fact, I had spent a good couple decades begging my ex to kiss me and he hated the practice. Well, he's an ex now.

So, to all the men out there who think they're fantastic lovers, just remember, they're only as good a lover as a kisser.

**Tomorrow Syfy is having a cool giveaway on here**

Vintage Halloween Costumes & Halloweens Past

What do you suppose it is about these vintage costume pics that make us feel very disturbed? I think the movies "Trick R Treat" and "The Strangers" definitely gave me this feel.


This was back when kids could wear costumes to school and teachers would dress as witches and we would do every politically incorrect thing under the sun. My mother once even did a Halloween party for my older siblings at our estate. She put the children in black hooded cloaks, had them hold a dish with a candle and walk the long march under the dark wisteria arbor, down the gravel path to a part of the yard we called "The Pit." She had a stake in the ground with a witch effigy. The kids got to light the kindling and chant while it burned. She would so not be able to get away with that today.


It was always so blasted cold and we needed coats but refused to wear them. We carried pillowcases and knocked on doors until midnight, the official end of the door answering time. Yes, midnight! No parents, just lots of runs for miles around to every door we could race to. We never had our candy inspected. Somehow I survived, though I admit I never ate the candy cane from the drunk up on Sideburn Road. This man always had a party going on during Halloween and would open the door, staggering and say "Merry Christmas" and give us a candy cane. We weren't supposed to knock on his door (he was notorious) but we just had to see what the commotion inside was. Lots of martinis clinking in that house and drunken guests rushing the door to look at the "adoradabable" kiddies (hiccup).


I'm trying not to reveal my era too much, but I did Trick or Treat in a time when almost all costumes were handmade. I went most often as a gypsy, one time as a hobo and one time as Pocahontas. I still love the gypsy costume because I can have my curly hair natural and walk around barefoot while reading palms. People think it's part of being in character, but when I read them accurately, they kind of get spooked. That's what Halloween is about!


I'd like to collect these pics and more like them and make a huge wall arrangement in my writer's office. There is something eerie about creepy vintage dolls and vintage Halloween pics that will definitely incite me to write some true terror.


You might consider picking up some of the cues from these pictures for a Halloween costume that would disturb more than any Latex Pinhead mask. Sometimes, the rigged costume is the freaking creepiest. Just look at Michael Myers with mechanic's overalls and a William Shatner mask...

I remember as a kid spending weeks ahead considering the costume, beg, borrowing, rigging, sewing, gluing, and the day of Halloween, with the smell of chili cooking downstairs, the flickering Jack O'Lantern light casting shadows on my image in the mirror, I'd excitedly fix my makeup with my older sisters helping. It was the prom night for grade school!

**Tomorrow Syfy has a fun giveaway here on my blog!**

Psychomanteums

The psychomanteum is a gazing mirror used for making contact with those who have passed on. Dr. Raymond Moody (of the book "Life After Life" fame) made this ancient technique popular with his book "Reunions: Visionary Encounters With Departed Loved Ones."

The best description I’ve found of this technique comes from this website’s description:


“The initial setup is a little more complex and costly than that of a scrying mirror. A large mirror (4' high by 3-1\2' wide) is attached to a wall with the bottom edge about 3' from the floor. A comfortable, high backed chair is placed about 3' from the mirror. The top of the backrest of the chair should be below the bottom of the mirror. The feet of the chair should be trimmed to allow the chair to slant farther back than is normal.

The person sitting in the chair should not be able to see his/her reflection in the mirror. The area around the chair and mirror is surrounded by a black velvet curtain. This black void should be all that is reflected in the mirror. A lamp with a 15 watt bulb is placed behind the chair. This is the only illumination in the room.

This procedure is usually performed after dark to alleviate the problem of light entering the room through the windows. Thick, dark curtains or a room without windows would allow you to use the psychomanteum even during the day.
Proper mental preparation is essential for this procedure to work. Dr. Moody starts his participants at 10:00 AM. They are requested to bring personal items from the deceased person that is to be contacted. Throughout the day they discuss the deceased. At dusk the participant enters the psychomanteum. He/she is told to stay as long as they like. They were also told to blank their mind except for thoughts of the deceased and to gaze into the mirror. “

Although my own experience with using a psychomanteum is minimal (two sessions), I can attest to the fact that at one point a dark man’s shape appeared in the mirror and he stood there for some time before stepping back and out of sight. Whether that was an actual spirit or not is, of course, impossible to prove. I am more inclined to think that in the dim lighting and the reflective surface and my mind which was focused on a dead relative, I was able to make out shapes and shadows and then impart in them human-like qualities. Sort of like seeing exactly what you expect to see, such as folks who are in haunted locations making out shapes in the dark to be spirits. Humans are highly suggestible creatures.

This experiment has two things working against it. One thing is that the participant must immerse herself in items of the deceased, go there with the intention of reaching that loved one, and all the emotional feelings that the desire to talk to the dead produces. The other issue is that a mirror and low lighting are use to see things and as anyone who was brave enough as a kid to call on “Blood Mary” or “Esmerelda come to me” knows, you can see all kinds of things by virtue of the lighting, reflectivity, and the very real human need to find shapes in inanimate objects.

I would never advise people using this during periods of grief or those seeking a kind of resolution with souls of the departed. This is purely for experimental purposes and best used by people who have no existing emotional issues that might cloud the experience or leave them frightened. I would also want to exclude those of a highly religious background, as they might be more likely to fight against the taboo notions that go with trying to communicate with the dead. A lot of people, even as grownups, do not like gazing into mirrors in dim lighting. Highly suggestible people are most susceptible to ill effects and bad reactions. If your feet are firmly planted in this world, then anything you imagine or see is purely entertainment, like watching TV. You are there as a witness, more or less.

If you decide to experience a psychomanteum encounter, do not do so alone. Whether you realize it or not, just the active trying to create a portal to the dead can make feelings erupt and having someone there to sort it through with is helpful.

I do not see anything about the psychomanteum to suggest it actually will help speak with spirits, but I do believe that such experiments might help to bring the mind into a place where it can receive information, somewhat like meditation or psychic trances. It is, however, an intriguing thought. I personally think it would be interesting in my writer’s office to have a psychomanteum in the corner of the room like some folks keep stationary bicycles. It is a unique way to open the mind to what is beyond our realm in a way that encourages you to be sort of deprived of distractions, a kind of focusing tool.

Whether you believe in the phenomenon of psychomanteums or not, they have been with man for a very long time (ancient Greeks) and will continue to be a curiosity for the living.

I am planning on performing a psychomanteum experiment with my POE team and will report back the findings.

Step Into My Writer's Office...Someday

We all have those dreams—you know, the ones that the details of are so clear in our heads that we swear some day—it’ll be reality! I've found that the more I define these dreams and actually give myself visual cues on a corkboard, the more they seem to happen. My biggest dream revolves around my writer's office.

The writer's office is a dream location, but it's where it sits in the middle of that ignites my creative mind.

I’m living in a 1000 square foot cottage along the Shenandoah or perhaps near the coast of Oregon. A simple place, sunny, small, easy to care for, so I can concentrate on the outside: A huge sustainable organic garden, a cherry orchard, a pond to skinny dip in, a large labyrinth to walk in when I need to center myself. A few seats from amusement park rides left to rust and making interesting places to sit in a Tilt-A-Whirl seat or a Scrambler bench, creepy cemetery sculptures spread around the gardens that I created with my own hands…

And in the heart of it… a barn

My dream writer’s office for horror is in a barn with rusted sharp nasty farm implements hanging overhead as I work, dangling by clanking rusted chains. The floor is hard earth with a large pentacle imprinted in it where the desk sits atop it. There’s a loft where a huge array of creepy old baby dolls sit and stare down at me.



There is a life-sized Bigfoot statue lurking in a dark corner with red eyes that glow. A human-sized clown doll is poised in a chair as if having a conversation with me. One of those wonderful gypsy fortune teller booths from carnivals is in the barn near the entrance.



The walls have erotic and spooky murals marking my heritage of Vikings and Highlanders that I’ve painted over time when I was trying to break through writer’s block.



On Friday nights, I have artists come and we sit around with a model posing nude as we work on our skills of drawing the human body, followed by a merry little party by torchlight near the pond.

I have a stereo system and a projector in the barn so that I can project movies or scary slide shows onto the walls for a bit of background and inspiration as I write.

I tend to travel to places I write about, so I gather lots of photos of the most creepy aspects of the location and have them flashing on the walls to put me in the setting. The upper loft is strewn with hay and a blanket so I can lay down and study the sky through a large skylight above or perhaps make love....

Now, I dare you to give voice and description to your dreams.

Disturbing Videos: Watch in the Dark

Land of the Ancient Giants

On my research into the Grand Canyon finds, I kept running across a race of supposed giants whose remains have been found from Alaska to the Midwest. This one will give you the chills…

Apparently, these skeletons averaged 7’ tall and have been found in New York, Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, Nevada, Kentucky, Utah, Pennsylvania, Alaska, Minnesota, and pretty much all over the world. Interestingly, these have been found in caves and burial mounds and sometimes even wrapped in Egyptian style. Those of you who’ve read Genesis, might have heard of the nephilims, giants who supposedly descended from fallen angels. I’m always excited about the way things can link together and the Bible references with the find of giant bodies is quite spine-tingling.

There are several reasons for what might have caused such a giant race of people found all over the world:

1. Since taller height is something found in warmer climes and shorter plumper figures are found in colder climates. It could have been a climate issue that such large humans were prevalent.
2. It also could have been a common pituitary problem causing gigantism and perhaps related to something environmental causing this issue.
3. It could be that tall people were bred together for the purpose of larger humans as special anointed ones.
4. Extremely tall people may have been buried with special care for their uniqueness.
5. Lastly, we can guess that perhaps these were aliens of some sort.

This is such a hugely prevalent find, that I’m going to direct you to this thorough article about the details.

Here's some really fun pics of "giants" (hee hee)

"Walled In" Reviewed

Mischa Barton stars in this horror flick. I was bored one evening and put it on thinking the premise sounded interesting. A young female architect is sent to an isolated apartment building designed by an architect obsessed with empowering his building with live people buried in the walls. She’s supposed to evaluate the building and plan how it will be taken down by explosives for demolition.

I was actually sucked into the movie really early on, a good sign. The building is totally creep-o-rama and the tenants who are still there are hiding lots of secrets. If a building can be alive with its history and fueled by the blood of its sacrifices, this movie portrayed it well. I was surprisingly pleased with the movie. I expected to just like it for the spooky building in the middle of nowhere theme, but it ended up having many spooky layers. I sat through the entire thing and that says a lot because I have a low patience threshold for movies that don’t draw me in.

If you liked “Psycho” and “House of Wax,” you’ll enjoy this.

Inspirational Saturday: "It's Just a Flesh Wound"

Mantras to live by when life knees you in the groin (they work for anything that presents itself in your path):

"It's just a scratch!"
"Come on you Pansy!"
"Had enough, eh?"
"It's just a flesh wound!"
"I'm invincible!"
"The black knight always triumphs!"
"Running away? You yellow bastard!"

Recipes Using Halloween Candy!

Brownie Kisses
1 package fudge brownie mix (13-inch x 9-inch pan size)
48 striped chocolate kisses
Prepare brownie mix according to package directions for fudge-like brownies. Fill paper-lined miniature muffin cups two-thirds full. Bake at 350° for 18-21 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Immediately top each with a chocolate kiss. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks to cool completely. Yield: 4 dozen.



Mounds Candy Bar Brownies
2 Mounds candy bars
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup plain flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup chopped nuts
Melt candy bars and shortening. Remove from heat. Add remaining ingredients and blend well. Spread in greased 9-inch square pan. Bake at 350F for 25 minutes. While warm, cut into bars.


Candy Corn Bark
16 Halloween-colored chocolate sandwich cookies, chopped
1 1/2 cups broken small pretzels
1/3 cup raisins
1 1/2 pounds white chocolate, broken into squares
2 cups candy corn
orange and brown sprinkles
Spread the cookies, pretzels and raisins evenly onto a lightly greased small baking sheet. Melt chocolate in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water, or in the microwave, stirring frequently until melted. Remove from the heat while there are still a few chunks, and stir until smooth. White chocolate burns easily. Drizzle chocolate with a spoon over the goodies in the pan, spreading the top flat to coat evenly. Top with candy corn and sprinkles. Let cool until firm. Break into pieces and store in an airtight container.

Lonely on a Friday Night--Join Us Here!

Hey, It's Lonely on a Friday Night. Come and go and chat with me or with the others as we gather and comment back and forth. It's an all evening event.

Best Movie Monsters Ever

(Stan Winston, 1972 made-for-tv movie "Gargoyles")

What does it take to create the ultimate movie monster? It's actually an excruciatingly tough art. A few men, like Stan Winston, had an uncanny ability to create a monster with latex and mechanical parts, while others believe that CGI effects are the way to go and some old-time fellows depended upon makeup and great acting, such as in "Nosferatu."



There have been dozens of Godzillas, King Kongs, werewolves, dinosaurs and vampires for movies. Some of them hit the mark, others missed it entirely.



Although it may seem a bit outdated now, "An American Werewolf in London" had an unprecedented approach of the use of makeup, prosthesis, and mechanisms to actually take and evolve the monster as we watch it stretch and change. With good acting and this "real" looking approach, it actually seemed feasible. Rick Baker did an amazing job and actually was an innovator in makeup special effects because of this technique.



Stan Winston was probably one of the greatest in this industry, working on
"Jurassic Park," "The Thing," "Terminator," "Alien," "Predator," "Iron Man," and "Edward Scissorhands" among many many more monster/scifi movies. What was so amazing about what Stan Winston did was that he combined many aspects without ever compromising the concept of monster as "real." It's not easy to get the viewer to believe this thing really exists.

Some movies have had hokey monsters that the moment you see them, you go "oh, damn! Why did they have to show full-frontal monster?" The movie "Signs" really did that for me at the very end with the alien holding the child. In that moment, everything I believed crumbled quickly. The movie "The Howling," one of my favorite werewolf movies, completely lost it when they had the infamous office scene with the werewolf encounter. I remember bursting into laughter at that moment.



When it comes to larger-than-life monsters like King Kong and Godzilla, most special effects folks resort to scale models in the past, but a King Kong head was constructed and mechanized to scale for the 1976 version with Jessica Lange. In fact, the huge mechanized head has been used on the Universal City Tour for decades. Once again, another fantastic Rick Baker (An American Werewolf in London) design. Here's what IMDB says about the face: Seven different masks were created by Carlo Rambaldi, and molded by Rick Baker to convey various emotions. Separate masks were necessary as there were too many cables and mechanics required for all the expressions to fit in one single mask. The masks were comprised of a plastic skull over which were placed artificial muscle groups activated by cables which entered the costume through Kong's feet, with the outer latex skins molded by Baker were placed over the top. The masks used hydraulics to provide movement, so much like the mechanical Kong and hands, the facial expressions were controlled by the team of operators working off-set with the control boards. To complete the look of a gorilla, Baker wore contact lenses so his eyes would resemble that of a gorilla's.

I'm curious to find out what you believed to be a very real monster and a very not-so-real monster.

I admit that Predator was to me the ultimate and the worst one I ever saw was just about any werewolf movie or older Godzilla movie--awkward to say the least. I won't even comment on CGI. I just wish it would go away completely. It's like the Made-in-China solution for US movies and I'm really quite sick of it. In fact, if a movie comes out with too much dependence on CGI, I won't see it. Hence, I've not seen "Transformers" yet. I can only suspend my imagination so much before I begin to giggle rather than gasp.

**Hey, y'all, so far 30 participants for the virtual zombie walk event. The button is on the left if you are interested in the details and joining us. We will all be doing big pushes of publicity in September to get everyone hyped for the 30th!**

**Don't forget--tonight is Lonely on a Friday Night here. Come on and comment back and forth. I'll be in all evening, as usual.**

Creeping You Out! Puppets

This is a new series--Creeping you out! Today's subject--puppets, oh yeah, I'm starting with a bang!


This is a master puppeteer/artist named Jean Luc Courcoult and the Royal de Luxe Puppets.






(Brothers Quay--the best of all time--my ultimate favorite creepy videos EVER)

**Tonight is Lonely on a Friday Night. Come on and chat with me and others**

"Signs" From "Was That a Ghost?"

Here is a section in my book "Was That a Ghost?" (Kindle/Nook) about the subject of "Signs."

People ask me about signs a lot; those little nagging coincidences that make them feel that someone who passed on is trying to communicate. How do signs work? Is there such a thing as signs? How do I know if the signs are real or not?

Here's how I see signs, a lot like how I see bad things that happen in life. I do not by any stretch of the imagination envision a God in Heaven who decides to create bad things in people's lives to either punish them or rile them up or make them stronger.

Bad things happen in a world of free will, bad choices and mortality.

Good people don't take it personally and move on, perhaps stronger for something they learned in the lesson. The first time I backed out of a parking space and someone else backed right into me, I learned to be sure no one else was backing out when I left a spot. I do that every single time now, double and triple check. One bad lesson; much learned for life.

So, when you are driving home from a funeral and pull up behind a car with a customized vanity plate that reads “Darlin” and that was your nickname for your late wife, take that as a sign. Was Darlin' actually presenting you with the opportunity. No. I don't think the deceased have that kind of powers or else our late parents would have been certain we had the winning lottery ticket when our rent was due.

Signs have more to do with how tapped in you are to your life experience. If you can slow down enough to notice things, you pick up signs. It's exactly the same as when you learn a new word and swear everyone is using it all of a sudden. They used it before, you just never stopped to note that word all those times. Trackers would tell you that there are creatures in the woods, but until they stopped and looked for signs through broken branches and paw prints, they are never really so aware of what is out there in the periphery.

So, signs are a way to help us assimilate a new reality. We look for them. We make connections. We try to make sense out of what does not make sense. We spiritualize and universalize and get a new and broader perception of the world and its meaning. It's like looking for God and finding Him in everything around you. If you want to find God, He is there in that tree, that child, that rain cloud. If you want to find your loved ones, there is evidence. It comes in signs.

If you find your experience had a lot of signs, pursue it. This is a type of psychic avenue. I had something happen to me when my sister passed away. It was a sign that told me it was time to put her to rest, but I ignored it as long as I could until it was time to stop and notice it.

My Own Experience With Signs
My sister, Tina, died in 2005. When she passed on, she and I had just been talking about my ghost hunting and desire to reach our family members we’d lost. We had even discussed haunting our childhood home (she had no idea she would die suddenly in a month's time).

I was still grieving the loss greatly when I went back to work (I worked from home) and was sitting at my computer where I always had e-mailed Tina several times a day. Sometimes, the most mundane things like, “I’m making tacos tonight,” “Alex just got an A on his final in geometry,” “It’s finally raining!” I felt like a limb was missing. I wanted to write her every time something happened.

I’d open my Hotmail account and stare at the screen. I realized then that it said in the corner whose birthday was coming up. It listed “Tina January 1st" as the only birthday and it was not even the right birthday. Her name was there in big blue letters, taunting me. I thought about removing her address from my contacts, but that would make her completely gone for me.

In fact, I left her on there for years, learning to ignore the sign that showed her wrong birthday.

Then, one time while cleaning up files and deleting things I'd kept too long, I finally went in and removed her from the list of contacts.

I went on the next day and she was still listed as a birthday on the fictitious January first. In fact, her email was still there along with a pop up message box with “Send Tina a quick message.” I shook my head. I’m too logical to believe my sister was putting herself back into my contact list over and over again and begging for a message.

I removed her address again. Still, the next day she popped up. To test it, I removed someone else from my list. That person remained off the list. Tina, however, continued to pop up with the request to message her.

I couldn’t resist. I went into the box that said “send Tina a message” and wrote “Are you there?”

Are you getting shivers now? Well, the shivers aren’t necessary--yet.

I got a message back from her husband who couldn’t get rid of her email address and used it himself now. He hadn’t communicated since her death. She was the one who did all the letter writing and communications for the family and he wasn’t the writing type. He updated me on my nephews and then told me, “Did you write because it’s the anniversary of her death? We're all thinking of her too today.”

I was shocked. She had died so suddenly during the holiday time that I didn’t actually mark the date in my mind. I was so confused, I could barely think straight. I just knew it was between Thanksgiving and Christmas some time, unsure if it was November or December.

Sounds kind of coincidental, until you consider this: When I got his return message, I wrote him back and then proceeded to remove her again from the contact list. This time, she remained gone.

When you love someone, you really do become a part of them. You become spiritually intertwined. If you’ve lost someone important you probably remember driving around on the road and seeing people rushing to jobs and daily routines and feeling strangely removed and other-dimensional as if time stood still for you. That strange disconnect is important to taking on a big shock and a new reality, but another part of that could very well be that a fraction of your spirit intertwined with theirs in the spirit world. The more time away from the person, the more break between your spirits. It also explains why it's usually in the first days or week of a person's passing that you are "visited" by them when you still have powerful spiritual connections.

You might ask, "but why couldn't you erase your sister from your Hotmail unless she had a hand in it?" Truth be told, I went back and studied what I'd done in the process of removing her from the file and I hadn't verified taking her off. In my subconscious or perhaps my ties to her psychically, I had not confirmed removing her from the list...until I was ready to. The same said for contacting her husband on the anniversary of her death. It didn't escape my mind that it was that time of the year, but in search of signs that coincidence had more meaning and on a subconscious level, I might have emailed on that date, having no conscious recollection it was the anniversary.

Thanks Jayme King--Fox News 10!

I had a very nice time with Jayme King. What a nice and intelligent reporter/meteorologist. Thanks to the Hotel San Carlos in Downtown Phoenix too. This place is seriously disturbed in a good way--hauntings that create a lot of strange phenomena. They also give ghost tours there, so be certain to check it out if you're in Phoenix. I've actually gone on the tour twice and had a good time! It's got a very romantic and interesting history and a lot of strange mysteries. I had a great time talking to Jayme about my reasons for ghost hunting, book writing, the blog, and what it's like to be a psychic. Double thumbs up to the morning news on Fox 10--they seriously crack me up and y'all know how much I live to giggle.

I will keep you posted, of course, on Julie and I's two upcoming books "Kickin' Up Dust! (Getting Lost to Find Ourselves)" and "Zombie Housewives of the Apocalypse" which were are doing our photo shoot for next week. In the near future expect us to also talk a bit more about the book "Spirit Vessels: Why Some Buildings Are Haunted."