Greetings!
I am glad that you found your way here! Welcome to the F files! The name, which stands for Faith, my name, references the diaries of stories and experiences I have had over the years. The unusual, paranormal, the occult and the simply unexplained phenomenon I have experience, researched and heard about that can be verified.
I am a witch, and have been one for close to forty years. Those who have read my earlier blog, The Life and Times of a Contemporary New England Witch will see that the name has been slightly changed as well as the font size for ease of reading and to easily discern it from the earlier blog of over 500 articles discussing the basics of the practice of witchcraft for beginners.
I had taken a over a year and a half off to work on so many other wonderful projects, and to bend and shape and become the next metamorphosis of who I am! After taking plenty of time, and touching on many different writing projects some I have finished, some still in their formative stages, I decided to write about what I find exciting, fun, interesting and mind expanding! Some call it the Paranormal, a word originating in 1905 but because that was a time of the great Spiritualism craze, many associate that word with ghostly things exclusively. Some call it the Occult, which covers more spooky topics and this word originating in 1530 still elicits feelings of fear of the unknown. Some may say magical, mysterious, spooky, weird?
What do I call it? That is a very good question. Perhaps by the time I am finished writing this next series, The F Files, for you, I can determine what word best describes my experiences and the research I have done.
This first article focuses on the areas of 'spirit manifestation' and the conclusions I have come to. Firstly it is important to understand, whereas I am a witch I do not identify with the new age movement. I have no issue with anyone that does, I simply believe that as the ancient alchemists, what we do is a science, the most ancient of sciences. I have a deep respect for science both it's ancient origins and the modern areas it has evolved into.
Let's discuss. In this discussion I am focusing on three types of spirit phenomenon. There are other known and many more unknown variants but for now, we will start with three.
Loved Ones who have passed on. Their spirits stay close to those they loved, who loved them and there have been instances where even an ancestor who had never met a younger descendant will be around to watch over. There are scholars who have studied the concept of the blood or DNA having a recall that can reach back, and that seems to touch upon this concept.
This is where the term a person being 'haunted' comes into play. But it is never a malevolent being. It is a loving energy and only a loving or familial connection can bring it to you.
For those who had bad experiences, trauma, violence, the spirit is not haunting you, tormenting you or in anyway harming you. We have free will and they cannot cross that barrier. The thoughts, nightmares, night paralysis, is psychological and does have an actual physiological reason. The hauntings one sees in movies or reads about in literature is purely fiction, as entertaining a it may be.
Though I have met many who are not ready to hear that and insist they are being visited by a demon or entity and I can tell you that it says a lot when they tell me this and I ask them if they wish to rid themselves of this trouble. When they back away from doing anything to change their situation then for whatever reason this 'trouble' benefits them. Or why else not get rid of it?
Also when one smudges or cleanses a room, loved ones do not leave. They come and go as they need to. But are not always visible, to you. Love is a connection that keeps us connected. For those who have a religious belief, do not think if they are here with you, that they are not in 'Heaven', they are easily in more places than one. The soul is infinite and not bound by earthly limitations.
"Recordings"
Recordings are the word I give this phenomenon. I practice psychometry. This is a practice of holding or touching a tangible non-living object and simply by touching it you can tell about where it has been, who has owned it, what experiences it has been witness to. This is very effective with jewelry as it is so often worn for long periods of time, over long periods of time and much energy from a single person is deposited on it.
I am most effective when it comes to using psychometry on buildings. I can touch an old building, even to the stone ruins of a foundation no matter how old and suddenly hear, see, smell all sorts of events that had happened in and around that building in it's day.
These recordings happen with the human energy of living that goes on in and around the building. Especially repetitive or intense high energy activity. For instance, if there is a monastery and a monk wakes every morning, at the same time daily, walks to the wash basin, does his morning ablutions, performs his prayers walks to the east window to look out and performs this same process daily. For years. After he passes away, another monk happens to pass the monks empty bedchamber at the exact time in the morning when he would normally be performing his morning routine, and sees a figure going about the same process.
As the younger monks scurries away, fearful he has just seen the older monks ghost, he hadn't. The wood, stone and materials the monastery is built with has absorbed the vibrations of the recording of the older monks ritual movements every day for decades and it was simply being released at the time the younger monk passed by. And many times this will also happen if a horrific event happened, a war battle, a tragedy, church bells ringing at a set time heralding an auspicious event, ghostly hoof beats from horses passing by that no one can see. There are no ghostly riders, no invisible bells actually ringing. Just the recording of the vibrations coming through the veils that separate the worlds.
These encounters, these experiences have occurred to tens of thousands of people over thousands of years. They are folklore they have happened to often over time. In every country, every culture, to believers and non-believers alike.
In my experience this is very much the primary experience people encounter. But then again . . . there is the third type of spirit phenomenon.
Thought forms. These may indeed be the most horrific of them all.
When humans are killed suddenly, murdered violently, die accidentally, an image of their spirit, a layer of their energy seems to get stuck, as if a recording of the sudden release of energy that took their lives lingers on, and they can at times seem stuck to the place their bodies left the earth. The place of their death. Yet this does not happen to all. Actually very few.
But thought forms are a bit different. A human created spirit manifested thought form, is a little understood yet I believe real form of 'haunting'. Understanding quantum energy and theory explains much of what people sense, see and even hear more than loved ones who have passed coming back.
Take castle Leap in Ireland for instance, it is considered the most haunted castle in Ireland. There is controversy as to whether this castle was built in 1250 or whether it was built in the 1500's, but it is accepted that Leap castle was built upon the earlier settlement that dated back to the Iron Age, which for those not up on their middle school Social Studies, falls between the years 1200 b.c.e. and 600 b.c.e depending on the region of the earth. Which means humans have been living on this plot of land for up too 3,220 years.
To be considered the most haunted place, as one would expect, this castle has a horrific history of cruelty, murder, betrayal and treachery! All the ingredients needed to manifest a thick putrescent energy mass of misery. The longer humans have violently inhabited an area, the stronger the energy left behind.
The history of castle Leap consists of one barbarous warrior clan the O'Carroll's. They overtook the castle from the original owners by force, then became known for hosting feasts of great renown. The Chieftain would invite his rivals, those he perceived as threat or those he wanted to betray. Once his enemies were within his walls he would seize them and throw them into the castle's murder pits.
These murder pits were constructed when the castle was built and were an engineering feat of Medieval torture and cruelty. This pit was designed as a long necked shaft that a body was thrown down and the end opened into a large rounded pit where the skeletons and rotting corpses of other dead bodies festered. Some murder pits were outfitted with spikes on the bottom to add injury to the body, if the fall did not immediately kill the victim.
Diary accounts from some ancient castles wrote of these pits being cleverly engineered to be placed precisely within the castle so that the aroma of foods being cooked in the kitchens and eaten in the great hall would waft into air slits placed so the victims, starving and thirsting, injured and betrayed would suffer as great a torment as possible before also succumbing to death on the piles of bodies that had perished before.
Repair work on the castle in 1922 found the pit and though the total number of bodies was never determined, three carts of human skeletal remains were removed.
To have such intense pain, suffering and torment along with horrific murder of so many people over hundreds of years is thought to have caused the energy to coalesce into a mass of misery that some believe to have seen as an actual entity within the castle walls. Some have said "it", as they refer to the entity, has a foul odor, is a small being. No more than a foot to a foot and a half tall, hairy, filthy creature, no facial features apparent, and seen often in the shadows on the stairways. It does nothing but move on it's way and leaves one with a feeling of horror and apprehension.
Truly, after such a long history of misery, the very best to do to release such an energy is to have allowed the castle, when it fell to ruins to have removed the ruins or left them there to allow the elements to over time release the contained energy. By rebuilding and containing the energy once again, it is again recording, reliving and the energy of so much human suffering remains.
For those of us who are proponents of history, I also believe teaching what has happened in the past is important so we can remember and hopefully avoid reliving the mistakes of history. But keeping the buildings of torture, pain, misery, agony? I see no benefit to keep abandoned insane asylums, abandoned prisons, concentration camps, slave quarters, as the anguish has become tangible. Human emotions are not simply invisible ether. Museums near the areas detailing the history could be appropriate, and modern structures that never housed such human misery would be less likely to contain it. On a metaphysical level.
It is places such as these, where thought forms of pain and misery gather together and take shape. Ghosts? No, not as we understand the term traditionally. These are not specters of those who once walked the earth. I believe they go on, and many wonderful things may happen to the soul after the pain of their existence burns off. Yet if that energy is strong enough some can be left behind, still active in some way.
These are actual energies that can be felt as strongly as the energy of millions who worship and touch a sacred stone altar or building in reverence and that energy can be felt hundreds, thousands of years later.
I have countless stories and avenues throughout history I will share with you in this newest version of my blog. I hope you enjoy the Contemporary New England Witch''s F Files!!
Have a Mysterious Moment this week! 
© 2010-2020 Faith M. McCann. Portions of this blog posting may include materials from my book “Enchantments School for the Magickal Arts First Year Magickal Studies.” For more information, see www.enchantmentsschool.com or go to the title of tonight's discussion and click, it will link you to my school's website. Please note that the copying and/or further distribution of this work without express written permission is prohibited.
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June 2020 NOTE ON COMMENTS: Due to various time restraints on my part I find I have little time to response to comments, as much as I appreciate them. If my work causes one to further wish to do their own research that is wonderful. I am glad I could introduce a story, fable or my own experience to you. Yet I was born long before anyone had the ability to reach out online to a stranger and connect, thus we were forced to make due on our own to follow the paths various authors pointed out to us. As a traditional, ancient witch we are notoriously hard to find. For this reason I do not have the function to comment available, I hope you continue to read, enjoy and explore the world of the mysterious on your own. Blessings, Ms. Faith
