I never thought I’d say this, but I miss my poltergeist.
The fear, the not understanding, the admiration, amazement, and just the privilege of having experienced it all. Out of this world, literally.
Yes I’m sorry, yet another blog about that, a word that subject that used to (and still does) conjure up a fear so primal that it’s something I shouldn’t miss. The unbelieveable made real and played out before eyes – and ears. I should not miss it one jot… but I do. I'm not even sure that miss is the right word for this feeling, but for lack of something more appropriate, that's what I'm using. So I apologise for the overuse of the P word in these blogs over the past year or so, but at least it’s not bandied about quite as much as the D word.
So why is it that I feel something’s missing? Is it because I never felt alone when the activity was at its height? That’s not necessarily a good thing by the way, to be terrified to turn over in bed in case when you turn back the other side’s pillows are all gone, or that the fan is now on the other side of the room. It’s more than unpleasant to know you’re being observed by an intelligent entity, whatever a poltergeist may be – there’s no question that it’s intelligent. Mine certainly was.
Is it perhaps because the anxiety generated by being on constant high-alert in those days meant that to come down from that emotional high, now makes ‘normal’ life feel bland? I really don’t know. What I do know is that I feel stupid even admitting that I miss it just a teeny tiny bit.
They were intensley scary times, as I’m sure every other person who’s ever experienced such off-the-charts strangeness in their lives will understand. It sets you apart from someone who’s not experienced polt’ phenomena, but let me get one thing straight – I might miss the highs, but I would never ever EVER want to experience activity like I have done in my own home, ever again. I don't think...
I guess that when the most incredible (if terrifying) occurrences have rolled on for the amount of time that they did and escalated to a level of mischievous strength that they ultimately did, then of course nomality is going to feel stale.
At the prison too I’ve noticed since I’ve started working there, that the EVPs aren’t quite what they were. Perhaps I’m there too often, I can’t devote hours and hours to their study as I have been used to doing since May 2017. The place needs a break too, it’s worked to the hilt paranormally speaking, with so many people asking the same things, wanting the same results. The energy is drained – but I think it highly unlikely that the go-ahead to close for a fortnight would be given for the spirits to up their ante!
Oh how I hanker for the days of plugging-in to listen to my captures and being utterly blown away, flabbergasted by the class A marvels assaulting the ear drums! I still get captures of course, but I record sporadically and for just moments at a time as opposed to the 10 mins in each location for 2.5hrs that was my standard in the pre-staff days. I’m constantly aware that I need to get the site ready for the guests’ arrival and that I can’t dally, and I think you need to be relaxed and as chilled as possible to record successfully. I need to get out and about elsewhere to get my fix, but where? Shepton affords me the luxury, a very rare luxury, and that is to wander at will about a site so damned historic and intense, that I’m afraid a ‘haunted’ pub or spooky castle with roped off areas and looming staff, just won’t cut it. I have been thoroughly spoiled!
So yes, the strange feeling of anomalously-phenomenal isolation is totally at odds with how one should be feeling, but I’m not normal. You should know that by now!
If any readers here are familiar with the fabulously addictive BBC podcast Uncanny,you may remember the episode featuring Patti and Tanfield House poltergeist? Patti was an art student at the time and had moved into Tanfield House, student digs in Farnham in Surrey. During her tumultuous experiences, audio phenomena played a massive role in proceedings, ultimately enabling Patti to in all likelihood, save the life of her flatmate during a targeted break an and attack.
In the episode I recall Patti saying that the feeling she had when it was all over and she had to leave the property. It stuck with me because even though our experiences are a world apart, I have the same irrational feeling of loss now it’s done and dusted.
“I struggled to leave it, it felt quite seductive. It took me two months about the decision to leave and I felt that I had let this thing down, it felt so personal to me. It doesn’t make any sense, even now when I’m saying it it doesn’t make any sense.
I felt guilt (about leaving the accommodation and poltergeist) because it’s so personal. It feels like you have befriended an animal in a cage, and you’re walking away, you’re leaving it there.”
Patti K, ‘Uncanny’ Episode 14, The Haunting of Tanfield House
It’s time for me to go downstairs now and check on my lemon potatoes. Will I find two coins balanced on their sides on the coffee table again? Will Henry Hoover be hovering next to the sofa again? Will the oven turn itself off, or the George Forman on again? Will the skewer launch across the kitchen floor?
Unlikely. If any of this happened again I would sigh and think ‘why the hell did I dredge this back up?!’. But the spine would tingle, it would be Game On once more. These things really happened, god knows I’ve yarped on about them enough – but if you’ve not experienced anything like this in your life, be thankful. It’s not good, this is not something that anyone should actually wish for, as life-changing as it's been. It's almost like having had a drug, a dangerously addictive one, and then going cold turkey. Every now and then something will happen, as if whatever it was is just checking up. The three latest (March 2022) included papers up on the wall as if glued but they weren't, a skewer balanced under a coaster overhaning the kitchen worktop when I came back from the stables, and a chisel balanced under the drying rack, also in the kitchen. Obviously the kitchen's where it's at!
Just know that it is real, it is possible, and it’s something so amazing that it’s like an unexpected brush with fame, or knowing a deep dark secret. You can rarely have it back.
And I don’t want it back. At least, that’s what I will keep telling myself.
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