Spooky, freaky things during a reading

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 15 Oct 2003, and now archived in the Forum Library.

divinerguy	15 Oct 2003
With the approach of Halloween-Samhain, its time to dust off those memories of scary, unexplained things. Have you ever had anything happen during a reading which frightened you? Was unexplained? Do you have a good spooky Tarot story, even if its made up? A good ghost story would be fun as well. Let's hear it!!

Major Tom	15 Oct 2003
I teach a tarot course in a 16th Century Coaching Inn - ghost stories aplenty. ;) Anyway, with my latest course we were discussing and comparing the majors of the RWS, the Thoth and the Marsailles. When we got to uhhh...was it the hanged man or the devil? Anyway there was the sound of a bell right on the table. All four of us were startled by it and all heard it in the same way. We eventually discovered the source of the ring in the brass candleholder on the table. But none of us had been anywhere near the candlestick. Spooky?

Dexter	19 Oct 2003
Well this isn't a tarot story but it is a spooky story. Ever since I can remember I've had a sesitivity to places, buildings etc. My husband and I had rented our first home together after moving to a new city and starting new jobs. I felt nervous about the home but I put it down to every thing new happening around me and it was what we could afford at the time. We both worked shift work at the psychiatric hospital and alot of the time we worked opposite shifts. I never minded being alone, in fact I had always relished it as before he and I had got together I lived by myself. Anyway we also got a new dog who was usually very well behaved. We were not in the house very long and I noticed that when my husband wasn't home the dog would become very nervous, snarling, growling and would refuse to go upstairs where the bedrooms were. I knew how he felt because I felt nervous my self about the upstairs. It got so bad that when my husband worked late I wouldn't go up to bed by myself I would sleep on the couch downstairs until he got home. My husband didn't notice but I got so that even when he was home I couldn't sleep properly. He couldn't even get the dog to come upstairs with us. One night as I lay with my back to do the door I knew that there was something in the room. I slowing turned my head to see what it was and I felt extremely cold and as I looked in the dresser mirror I saw a light slowly crossing the room and when it got close enough to the mirror I could make out only the outline of a face but I closed my eyes and turned my head very quickly because I knew that I didn't or shouldn't see it any clearer. Needless to say I convinced my husband that we needed to move. We found another house to rent and the dog slept on the end of our bed every night.

Cerulean	19 Oct 2003
A girlfriend of mine grew up in the islands. To graduate with her class, she stayed with an aunt when her brother and parents moved to the mainland. It was early June, she was scheduled to fly out after the graduation ceremonies and in a few months, start collage in California. Her last night in the islands, with a high school boyfriend, they were going to one of the dinner restaurants at a hotel, then on the drive home, he had planned to, give her a lei in a pleasant moonlit spot and then they were going to drive to walk along the beach. Of course the conservative aunt stipulated a certain time for an under 21 girl to be home. After dinner, they parked at a hill overlooking a cemetary. The boy had to go to the bathroom, but everything was closed. So he walked beyond the car, around the hill, at the edge of the cemetary tombstomes. She looked out her side of the car and was feeling nostalgic, with a perfumed lei and the moonlight. Then she heard him running and he ran inside the driver's side of the car. She looked at him and was asking, "What's wrong, what's wrong?" "DON'T LOOK BACK!" He shouted and he drove like a bat out of the cemetary. He was very pale and when he got to the aunt's, the aunt was wondering why he looked so scared. He explained that when he was standing at the edge of the cemetary, a terrible pale face and figure arose and started following him. The aunt was furious at the boy. Local superstition was among other things that go bump in the night, cemetaries for locals have restless natives that walk with torches. If one encounters such beings, don't look them in the face and get out of there. The boy might have disturbed a tramp, drunk or local, but in any case, the kids were spooked. She said the boy's family moved away, so they didn't know what happened, if anything. Be careful of what you do on old pile of stuff in the dark---it may pop up and protest!

baba-prague	20 Oct 2003
The house I lived in about fifteen years ago seemed to be haunted. I didn't much believe it when one friend said he woke up in the night in the spare bedroom and saw a figure sitting in the corner of the room. He said it had a very distinctive glowing face and it really frightened him. I just assumed he had had a nightmare. However, about a year later I rented out that room to a very down to earth post-grad student. On her first morning in the house she came down to breakfast a bit annoyed and said to me "you could have told me my room was haunted". I asked her what she had seen - and she described exactly the same figure and in the same place. Like I say, she was a pragmatic kind of girl and all she did was ask me to help her move the wardrobe to that part of the room - she said she didn't mind a ghost as long as she didn't have to see it! In fact, off and on many odd things happened in that house, and I did end up believing that there was something. But I never found it frightening. After a while I asked the elderly lady next door the history of the house. Three sisters had moved there during WWII (when their own house was bombed) and all lived their entire lives there. After that it became a student boarding house, and then I moved in. I can't explain it, but whatever the presence was, it seemed to frighten men, but not women. I guess the sisters didn't like men?

dolphinprincess	20 Oct 2003
my boyfriend's stories are better than mine. when he was in high school, he and his friends used to play with the Ouija board..(i get so mad at him for this, as they scare the s**t out of me!).. They used to take the board to cemetaries (amazing what teenage boys will do to amuse themselves on a weekend).. a lot of the cemetaries around here are *really* old, and some of them have "witches" graves, or so i'm told... once they were doing this when they heard pounding/ shaking sounds in the distance... well the sounds kept getting closer and closer.. eventually it was right under the board... another time, my boyfriend said he saw a woman walking all in white through the cemetary.. i think both times, they got the heck out of there pretty quickly!...

Arora	20 Oct 2003
when i was in high school something odd happened - i had a waterbed at the time, a large, very wavy one, and i always kept a glass of water on the nightstand. i got up one morning to get ready for school, and when i returned to my room, the glass of water was in the middle of my bed. needless to say, i was very confused. did i put it there? wow, i must be losing my mind....either that, or my cat has super-powers and was messing w/ me.... then i notice my answering machine blinking. again, odd, since this is early in the morning. well, i pushed play and low & behold, there was a "psychic" on there, blabbing that i'd been "chosen" and she "must talk to me". i regret not calling her back. now i'm more curious than freaked out.

caledonia	20 Oct 2003
Last year, my Mom bought some little black with white trim cheap walmart tennis shoes. After wearing them about a week, she decided she hated them because they were two-tone and didnt match anything. She put them away into the black hole which is her closet and forgot about em all year. Last week, she bought some all black ones from somewhere. She took em out of the bag and set them next to the chifforobe. Next morning, she went to put them on and, lo and behold, the new shoes were gone and the old ugly shoes from last year were in their place. True story! My dad doesnt have much of a sense of humor, so I doubt it was him, and I wasnt even over there, and they live a mile back in the woods! I told her (only half-joking) that it must be shoe gnomes, or Native American trickster spirits from the nearby woods. She has searched the house and not found em yet. This sort of thing always seems to happen to her, and this is perfect illustration! Spooky! I was thinking of trying to use my cards to discover their location, but I really would have no idea how to do that. Hey! That's a good subject for a thread... Regards, Caledonia

paradoxx	20 Oct 2003
whn outside of my home, a trailer, facing south at the edge of the lot, hidden in teh shadows is the figure from the Fairy Wicca Tarot hiding behind a building. cloak and all. no directly tarot related, but i have seen him there before i purchased the deck. When working with my osho zen tarot, i believed to have placed all of the cards in thecase, then, right there where i was kneeling my knee down, was the 4 of clouds, postponement. the card was slightly bend and it formed an effect with the design of the card that resoneates with me to this day as a self-marked card. no cards have ever jumped out of my hands, nor have any individual cards changed their designation as i have worked with them (not in reality, my dreams are different issue). i await samhain energy, as i feel it slowley coallessing into something greater.

IrishRiotGrrrl	21 Oct 2003
I've had only two weird things happen to me during a tarot reading. I was reading my husband and the Sun card came up in his reading. I have these two balls that represent the sun and the moon sitting on my shelf and when that happened the sun ball fell to the floor. I just that it was freaky. The other thing that happened was when I was reading a friend Mark during circle. I was reading him with the Faery Ring Deck I have and after the reading I noticed he had glitter all over him. I dont know if it was there before or not, but I wanted to think it wasn't on him before the reading just to add some mystery and excitement to the experience. I asked him if he had the dust on him before circle and he insisted that it wasn't on his person before the reading...I dont know. Wellpers, thats it for me...more funny than scary though huh? If anyone wants a true ghost haunting story I have plenty of those.

SongDeva	21 Oct 2003
Quote: Originally posted by IrishRiotGrrrl If anyone wants a true ghost haunting story I have plenty of those. Bring'em on!

Umbrae	21 Oct 2003
I have a few true first hand ghost stories...but it says here "During a Reading"... When I was a teenager, I was 'playing' with a Ouija board with a friend. We had the board on our laps, the planchette was moving...and answers were difficult. Then the planchette was on our laps and there was no board. It had scooted out and off our laps and landed about 4 feet across the room. My buddy freaked out and gave me the Ouija board. I snuck it home because my mother would not allow one in the house. I've never used a Ouija board since.

firemaiden	21 Oct 2003
LOL - I had a Ouija board once. It... disappeared.

nina	22 Oct 2003
Hello, The restaurant I work in is an old, old, building and many men who have been to the upper floors believe it to be haunted. But no woman who works there has ever said they felt even the slightest bit uneasy. One of our cooks was once stuck for week with no place to live so we told him he could sleep on the couch in the upstairs office. When I came in the next day he was sleeping on the booth of a table on the main floor and told me he wouldn't sleep up there again, he wouldn't go up there again unless he had to. He said he'd woken up and seen the faint image of a woman standing over him and knew that she did NOT want him to be there. He thought he was maybe dreaming but realized he was just coming out of sleep but still saw her and high-tailed it downstairs. My boss' old partner, one of the most pragmatic, prosaic, down-to-earth people I know (he's an accounant for crying out loud) , made a female bartender leave in a big hurry because they were open unusually late and the building was "acting up"- the register would reopen several seconds after being closed, lights wer turning off and back on. She told me he was completely rattled, it shocked her how much, and he said, "she doesn't want us here anymore, let's go. He almost left without taking the bank for the night with him. The funny thing is that the upstairs office has recently been converted into an apartment for my boss, who is male (he's this rough-voiced southern guy, reminds me of Eastwood). I asked him why he wasn't scared, he told me he'd had a dream about the lady, and she likes him because he looks like her ex-husband. Who knows? My boss asked me if I believe in the ghost and I told him no, because the thought that I might still have to go there even after I'm dead is too depressing to contemplate. -nina

Dark_angel	23 Oct 2003
It's not really a tarot story, but... ... my flat is haunted. Seriously, I've only recently moved in, and last night was the first night I was alone in it. All night I could feel someone else there (I'm a pretty realistic person, so I wasn't just letting my imagination run away with me), although I couldn't see anything. At times I could even tell you where she (it's a young woman, I think) was standing. And she does NOT like Christina Aguilera! I was listening to some music, and Christina's new album came on, and suddenly the presence seemed to become very hostile. It calmed down when I switched her off though. She seems a bit apprehensive about me, I was sensing quite a bit of "what are you doing in my house?!" (I live in a converted Victorian townhouse), but I'm sure we'll be fine together. My flatmate doesn't believe in any of "that ghost rubbish" so I haven't told her, and I think that's why she's never felt anything, because she isn't open to the possibility of ghosts. Oh, and my boyfriend has seen a ghost. He was a child and couldn't sleep, so he went downstairs to watch TV, and saw a white figure standing in the hallway. It turned around and started moving toward him, and he screamed. His mother ran downstairs, and when she got to him, the figure had vanished. It couldn't have been either of his parents, as his mother came from upstairs and his father was away on business, and his siblings were far too young. He slept with the light on for ten years after that. Hey, if you guys want a really scary film, go see 'Darkness Falls'. It's only a fifteen, but it's quite possibly the scariest film I've ever seen. Luv, Fi. xxx

dolphinprincess	23 Oct 2003
well, i already posted once - but i'm having so much fun reading these, i thought i'd offer another. .. we swear that my boyfriend's brother's house is haunted.. first, they have two young children.. the one girl has woken up in the middle of the night and been "talking" to someone... the radio has gone on in the middle of the night.. almost nightly, between 9:30 and 10.. you can hear kids running upstairs... i babysat one night and i would have SWORE the kids were up... went i went upstairs, they were sound asleep.. when my bf's brother came home later, he swore there was a woman looking at him in the window.. his wife was asleep.. in fact he was mad at her bc he really thought she was lying... a face showed up in a home video on a tin.. (it kind of looked like the face of jesus).. and there was nothing on this tin that even resembled what showed up on film... well, i could go one.. but i've rambled enough. i know we've all pretty much deviated from the original question... as none of these have occured during a reading.. (sorry!).. but I love a good ghost story :o)

IrishRiotGrrrl	23 Oct 2003
This isn't really related to tarot cards, but I dont think anyone is going to mind too much. Heh. My husband and I when we first got married moved to this small town in Georgia called Americus. We had this pretty kick butt lfot above some downtown shops...you know the type, the door right off the sidewalk of the downtown area and then you walk up stairs and wha la, a front door to an apartment type thing...yah, well that was our place. Anyways, lots of strange things happened there, and we had tons of arguements because I thought my husband was messing with me. One time he was at school in Macon, which is really far away, about a two hour drive from Americus and I was in the loft alone, taking a bath. I heard the front door open, someone go into the cabinets, open the fridge...I thought my husband was home, so I got out of the tub and walked into the living area/kitchen to find that my husband wasn't there and the front door was shut and locked, but all the cabinets were open. I was pissed because I thought homeboy was messing with me. So I got dressed and walked downstairs and looked for his car, and nothing...I got a bit freaked out and called him up at school....he was there in class, so obviously it wasn't him. I had incidents happen all the time, like doors opening and closing (no joke!) and fans turning on, cabinets opening when I would leave the room and come back. I was so annoyed with it, I thought someone was messing with me. So finally I asked the landlord about it, saying the doors would open, etc. I remember the look on his face...it was a strange reaction to me. He said honey I think you might be drinking too much red wine and changed the subject as fast as he could. Maybe he thought I was crazy...hell I dont know. Anyways, when we went to move out, we had one pickup truck and we took loads. Well when we came back to get the last load, we had the strangest feeling over us, my husband went upstairs to the apartment and came back down saying Rachel you have got to get up here and see this! I walked upstairs and every single light was on, the oven was on, the burners were on, everything was on-all the fans, everything! It was pretty freaky, so we walked around got the rest of our stuff, turned off everything and left. I noticed something when we were leaving that I had never noticed before. It was a smack in the face, but right in front of the building was a historical sign that said this block used to be the site of a Cofederate Hospital during the Civil War. I freaked out and well, my questions were all awnsered. I still dont know if it was an actual haunting or if it was a memory printed in the building..all I know is what happend to me was real! LOL! Thinking about it gives me the chills.

divinerguy	23 Oct 2003
I recently visited the Whaley House. It is well known as the most haunted house in America. http://www.anomalies.net/ghosts/whaley_house/ Although I've lived in San Diego my entire life, I haven't visited the Whaley House because of teasing by my older sister and brother. About three months ago, that changed. I visited the Whaley House to actually see if I could find a ghost. I took along some "ghost hunting" equipment, which included a digital camera. In the salon, there is a glass covered book case. I took a photo, and when I examined it at home, there are reflections in the glass. When the reflections are enlarged, you can see faces in the reflections. Many of the windows at the Whaley House exhibit this spooky phenomena. Here's a link to one of my photos. http://www.ghostinvestigations.com/whaley_face.html If you copy the photo, you can enlarge the image using Windows File Manager or any photoshop type program. Look and judge for yourself.

punchinella	24 Oct 2003
Looks like the top of of a man, nude, w/ long dark (curling) hair. This thread is dreadful (well--it's 3 am here . . . ) I'm going away now, someplace 'nice' . . . P.

spoonbender	24 Oct 2003
brrr maybe I shouldn't have read these posts before going to bed :eek:

full deck	24 Oct 2003
I landed in Washington, DC today and the flight was pretty exciting. What need I of ghosts when I'm feeling like one already? The only spooky (?) thing that can happen to me is that when I'm *really* visualizing well during a reading it has this *other* quality that feels a bit alien.

darwinia	25 Oct 2003
Quote: Originally posted by punchinella Looks like the top of of a man, nude, w/ long dark (curling) hair. Rats. Nude male ghosts never show the bottom, you'd think it was Hollywood. The ones with long, dark, curly hair always get away too. Triple Ratsky.

punchinella	25 Oct 2003
Well I don't know freesiasskye, maybe this is for the best . . . the bottom half could be goat . . . or . . . or . . . ???

SongDeva	27 Oct 2003
Who else has something to share?

The Spooky, freaky things during a reading thread was originally posted on 15 Oct 2003 in the Talking Tarot board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Talking Tarot, or read more archived threads.