Abandoned House

Full transcript of the My True Ghost Stories episode “Abandoned House.” Listen to this episode.

Hi, I'm Jennifer and this is my True Ghost Stories, where I share stories of my supernatural adventures as a spiritual medium helping trapped spirits to cross over and more. Let's get started. Welcome to episode 11 of My True Ghost Stories. Today you'll hear a story of a psychic connection between me and a house. And let's begin.

The name of this story is Abandoned House. This story takes place when I was a kid in the 70s. There was a certain nostalgia about this time in history. A lot of talk about how kids weren't so sheltered back then and they were left to themselves to run around and have it ventures all day without parental interference and we were all supposedly better offer it and we learned to be independent. And this was true when you played on your own block and your mom and other people's moms watched you.

But after a certain age we often left the block and that's where we did all the dangerous things. I would say that we definitely learned independence and gained serious street smarts. But we also did extremely risky things like go on people's roofs, cross busy streets not at the green, handle dead animals, talk to strangers, set things on fire, have seances with fire, trespass on angry neighbors property, ring angry neighbors doorbells and run and so on and so on. And while all of these things seem to set off on memories of the good old days for many, I'm just grateful to have survived it. I'm not going to list the unpleasant at best and sometimes traumatizing consequences of some of these free range activities.

Among my personal tales of running around town unattended is the story of the abandoned house which was up the street from the local park in the same town but many, many blocks away from my home. This had obviously once been a lovely house. It was large, architecturally beautiful, had a front yard and a backyard and many rooms. And the reason I know it had many rooms is because my friend Rosemary and I used to go in there. The first time we ventured up the pathway to the entrance of the house with the intention of peeking in the window, we noticed that the front door was a jar.

Upon opening the door and yes, it opened with a long scary movie style creek. We saw an entryway that opened up into a large room with bay windows that let in lots of sunlight and that room was probably once a living room. The house seemed to have been abandoned for some time because white paint was peeling off the walls and sealing, revealing other paint colors underneath and there were scary movie style cobwebs everywhere. But there was something warm, motherly and inviting about this sunny place. There was life here.

I could feel the energy of families that probably lived here once and the room still told you what they were for, like the living room, the dining room. And I felt strangely welcomed as if we were visiting someone who was lonely. So, we explored the rest of the house, going into all the downstairs rooms, kitchen, bathrooms, dining room, and then we headed upstairs to see the hallways, bedrooms, and even the attic, where we just peeked because that was too spooky. Even though the rest of this self-guided house tour was fun and not scaring us at all. And I felt a sense of duty to visit this lonely house again.

So, we went back all the time. Do you want to go to the house? We would ask each other and then head over there, walk up to the front door, look around to make sure nobody was watching and then go in to play. And we would literally play house, like this. What do you want for dinner?

Rosemary would yell from the kitchen. Oh, you can cook anything. I'm just going to sit here in the living room and read a book. I would respond. And we would also go upstairs for bedtime, where we had chosen our own bedrooms.

Good night. See you in the morning. We would yell down the hallway. And one of the reasons that we weren't scared was because this was all during the day, with plenty of light streaming in the windows and you could hear the traffic outside. We never would have been able to go in at night anyway, because every kid's schedule back then was that once the street lights came on, you had to be home.

So we would always leave the abandoned house at dusk when the street lights began to flicker on, which would give us enough time to run home. And thank God we never went in at night. Because one day Rosemary and I were in the house playing our usual make dinner, eat dinner, go to bed game and we headed upstairs. And one of our bedrooms had fresh graffiti all over the walls that wasn't there the day before. And some of it was names.

And most of it was I will call not very nice things. So we were not the only people that hung out in that house. We have to get out of here, said Rosemary. And she was a little older than me. Why?

I asked. It's tough kids, she said. I understood. I saw how scared she was. We ran down the stairs and out the front door and never went back.

That, what I just told you, was the scary part of the story, not the supernatural part. That's coming up. Now as far as being scary, I suppose it's possible that it was not tough kids, but something like a gang of friendly girl scouts that spray painted all of that violent imagery onto the walls at night. But probably not. This was truly scary.

As I said, Rosemary and I never went back to that house. But my connection to that place remained. And the supernatural part of the story takes place several years after my last visit to the house by the park. And here it is. My grandparents had a lake house in Michigan.

And me and my brothers used to spend a good part of our summer there every year as kids. So after an exciting ride on an airplane, as the days pass, we would slowly settle into clean air, swimming in sparkling blue water, quiet days and nights with no traffic sounds. We would feed the ducks, catch minos, roll the robot and just relax. And I don't know about my brothers, but I would sleep really well. And in Michigan, during this vacation, one night I had a dream.

In the dream, I was standing in the middle of the living room of the house by the park. The room with the bay windows out of the street that would let all the light in, where I used to sit and read invisible books while Rosemary would cook invisible dinners in the kitchen. And I was standing in the middle of the living room and feeling that friendly embrace from the house. And as I looked around in this dream, the walls were melting. And that was the whole dream.

When I was staying with my grandparents for the summer, we would have a weekly phone call back home to my mom, where we would tell her all about our days in if grandpa caught any fish. And she would fill us in on what may have happened back home. That weekly phone call was scheduled for the next day, the day after I had the dream about the melting walls. Let's call your mom, my grandmother said. And we took turns getting on the phone.

And when it was my turn, I told my mom a few things. And when it came time for her to tell me about happenings at home, she said, Oh, you know the old abandoned house down by the park? I answered, yes, I do. Not revealing how well I knew that house. And she continued.

It burned down last night. Thus the melting walls. I don't think I told her about my dream. I remember thinking about it and making the connection and feeling sad because something bad had happened to this friend of mine, this empty house. Even though I hadn't visited that friend in several years, and I realized even as a kid that that dream was a good buy, I did not dwell on it.

I didn't have any emotional references at that time for this loss. So I just felt sad for a moment did not tell my mother that I used to hang out in that abandoned house. And I just moved on with summer fun activities. And I think that house considered me a friend too. I personally do believe that houses have a soul.

And maybe all objects have a spirit like some ancient belief systems. I remember as a kid when my family would go on vacation and our home would be empty for a week or two, I remember that I would worry that the house would be lonely. I wanted someone to visit the house, sit on the couch, walk around, use the rooms, keep her company. And that's what I believe me and Rosemary did for the house by the park. We brought life and movement into it.

Use the rooms, walked around. And I think that made the house happy and she formed a connection with me. I don't know about a connection with Rosemary and probably not with the vandals who spray paint the walls. But I think because of our connection, that house reached out to me to let me know that she was passing on. I remember seeing a documentary called Breathing Lights where they went to all these abandoned houses and put in an art installation that would light up the windows.

And the effect was that they were sort of bringing these houses back to life. And they talked about how people had lived there, cooked there, used all the rooms, brought energy there. And that an abandoned house is a sad thing. And this documentary made me cry. And they showed the insides of these houses.

And it reminded me of my old friend by the park. And I put a link about this installation in the show notes. They eventually built a new house on that lot, which is very nice and new looking. And in my opinion does not have the charm of the original. And they obviously haven't been inside to experience the energy.

But I'm sure energy is there. And new life has come to that new space. And I believe that this house was an energetic being with a spirit that connected with me. And I believe that the soul of the empty house by the park is now at peace. Let me know if you have any stories of feeling spiritually connected to a home.

Now these days, I don't sneak into old abandoned houses anymore. Now people ask me to go into spaces where weird stuff is happening. Energy is bad. And I'm often asked if I'm scared to go into these potentially spooky situations. Dark basements, musty addicts, abandoned storage rooms.

And the answer is no. I'm not scared. I used to be scared all the time. And although I would often help when asked, I would hesitate to get involved in these clearing situations, even though I knew I could help. I could talk to the ghost.

I could clear the energy. But I didn't want to do it because I felt it was risky. I was afraid of a ghost not crossing over, but instead following me home. I was afraid of negative energy sticking to me. I had heard these stories of this happening to other people.

Plus what happens in scary movies, even ridiculous scary movies, where the gates of hell wind up opening up in someone's backyard because of a seahunt's gone wrong or something like that. So I didn't want to risk it. I was pretty timid. But the universe was calling me to do this work full-time, not as a hobby, to help trap spirits, deliver messages to the living, and clear energy. And I felt a responsibility to do so.

So I had to find a way. I had to find some way to protect myself. I knew that other people did this. Help trap spirits, clear negative energy, and also lived normal lives. They went home, they cooked dinner, watched TV, so they're obviously had to be away.

So I got serious, and I set out to find myself protection. So I could do the job to which I was being assigned. And I had to find something that worked for me. Different religions and spiritual practices all have their methods of protection, and they probably all work. But I had to find mine.

I have many religions in my life because of my family life and various neighborhoods I have lived in, and neighbors I've lived next to as a child and as an adult. So I'm blessed to have access to and knowledge of lots of spiritual tools. I decided to talk to Johnny at the Botanica. That's the message I was getting. And this is the scene Botanica I mentioned in Episode 9.

Johnny gives amazing readings and also practical spiritual and business advice. I went there, I told him what I wanted to do, go clear these haunted houses for a living. I hope for his blessing which I got, and I got some suggestions. He recommended many things, and these are some of the ones that I use. When I go to these spaces where I'm going to work, I light a white candle and leave it in the entryway while I work.

I wear these particular protective beads. I openly ask certain deities for protection before entering the space. That house dark basement or musty attic. I take a spiritual bath afterwards, and that's made up of a combination of herbs and oils and the bath as a ritual that goes with it. Johnny also encouraged me to use the tools of the religions of my childhood.

There's lots of good protection out there. And it's all very practical. It's like washing your hands, like washing your hands before you eat, and washing your hands after riding the subway. You know, plain old protection. To me, this was a huge hurdle to get over that fear of being haunted and ruining my life, like those people in the movies that do the sands wrong.

And they do the sands wrong in like the first 15 minutes of the movie, and the rest is just one horrific jump scare after the next, and usually like only one person lives through it. Now that is not real life, but those movies I watched as a team certainly made an impression on me. Using the protective measures recommended to me by Johnny and other tools from my belief system, it gave me the courage to go ahead and do this work. I find that when I set these tools up, I get better results. I feel less fear.

I can really focus. The job is more efficient because there is a boundary between me and the spirit or the energy, and I can do the work. And sometimes the spirits do spooky things, like move stuff around, rattle the doors, stomp on the ceiling above me, and while I do acknowledge that it's spooky, I'm brave enough because of my protection to go ahead and do my job. And lots of good things come from it. There are many, many methods of spiritual protection out there.

And as I said, they probably all work, especially if you choose them for yourself. So if you have a special spiritual necklace, incense, statue, medallion, prayer card, anything like that, I encourage you to wear it, carry it, use it. We all need protection so we can do our jobs, whatever they may be. Let me know in the comments or send me an email about any spiritual protection you might use. And if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend and take a second to review this show and help it grow.

And that's all for today. Thank you for listening to today's episode. And if you think your house is haunted, want energy cleared from your space or need a custom spiritual ritual, I'm here to help. Visit jpclearing.com or email me at jpclearing60 at gmail.com. Don't forget to join me here every Tuesday for a new episode. Until next time.