What Is It Which Haunts Some Places...

Obviously if you're going on a guided tour of the most Haunted Castle in Ireland you're going to be pretty peeved if you don't see some evidence for yourself...you know the sort of thing...ladies dressed in filmy frocks disappearing through walls or a chap happily striding about with his head tucked neatly under his arm...a few rattling chains might be good...especially when your earnest guide switches all the lights off...

Whether those sort of ghosts are real or imagined is a matter of conjecture and it doesn't much matter in the scheme of things providing they keep themselves to themselves and don't frighten the horses...

But what if you are totally ignorant of a place...not a grand stately home with a sweeping drive to the front door and proper parking and tea-rooms...just an ordinary sort of a place...the ruins of a cottage perhaps or the remnants of an early Church...

Just what is it about some places which cause you to give an involuntary shiver and decide you've seen all you want to and then you beat a hasty retreat...

What is it which lingers there centuries later...why should the events of the long ago past still hold some resonance now...and where are those hints of sadness and despair...are they in the actual air surrounding such places...are they absorbed in the very stones of the old ruined cottage high in the mountains or the remaining fabric of a tiny early Church sitting amongst the meadows filled with grazing cattle...

It seems trite to say the spirits...if that is what they are...are restless and unhappy. It seems to smack of charlatans sitting round tables holding hands with the gullible to get into contact with a departed Aunt...

Would you not see them..if they were spirits...would you not catch a glimpse of a wraith melting quietly into the background on a bright sunny afternoon...you'd sense them wouldn't you...turn quickly, hopeful, yet dreading a brief sight of something you'd not quite understand...

But those dreadful places which give off a sense of fore-boding...a sense of fear and sometimes of terror...they don't have shades flitting behind the trees or lurking among the tombstones...all they have is the remainders of an evil wrought a long time ago.

It's easy enough to make yourself scared when you join the queue to take a tour round the haunted battlements of some old castle...like watching a horror film on television...it gives you a thrill of excitement and you know full well it's only a film or it's only an old castle...

But what of those places where you don't feel a thrill...those places you take tentative steps in because you can feel something is off kilter...

It's almost tangible...you can almost see it...whatever it is.

I'd like to know...I'd like to know what it is that causes this thrumming of restless souls who crowd around desperate to be heard...why should they make me so uneasy, so anxious to be gone. Why do I worry and glance over my shoulder and not want to linger...

[Hidden]

Hi vashti lovely story thanks. I thoroughly believe in 'feelings' about building like this. Every property I have bought have always felt 'nice' and I have rejected better ones which didn't feel nice.

I remember moving down here 19 years ago. I saw a very nice big flat in a block which I should have bought instead of my small flat. The atmosphere of this small flat is lovely though whereas the bigger one had a very depressing feel. There was no rhyme or reason to it as it was lovely, but there was just something about it which I felt uncomfortable with. My mother couldn't feel it and kept urging me to buy it so much I went back for a second look, but on entering it I again felt the depressing pervasive atmosphere as though the previous owners had been very unhappy there and it had seeped into the walls. x

[Hidden in reply to Hidden]

That atmosphere does seems to seep into the very walls themselves doesn't it?

Very peculiar.

[Hidden]

amazon.com/House-Next-Door-...

This book is wonderful vashti. I have it somewhere so it you want it I will dig it out and send it to you. xx

[Hidden in reply to Hidden]

Don't you go sending books...imagine the horrible cost!!

[Offcut]

I agree that there are places that do not feel right. Is it a smell or other sense that brings back a bad hidden memory? My wife and I walked into a a house we were viewing and we both looked at each other on entering the hallway which was immaculate and very modern. Neither of us said anything but we were shown around and we left. Once we sat in the car we said we would not buy it as it did not feel right as soon as we went in?

[Hidden in reply to Offcut]

But that's the thing isn't...nothing either your wife nor you could say other than 'it not feeling right'...I'd love to know what the 'it' is...

[Azure_Sky]

I don't believe in ghosts, although I think there may be something in the theory that repetitive actions can somehow leave an impression that is visible to people sometimes. I don't believe they have any consciousness.

With regard to spiritual beings, when I have been with a person who was close to death and then passed, I have been aware of others in the room and seen a golden glow, then witnessed the way the physical body becomes an empty shell, once the life force/spirit has left.

When my grandaughter was born prematurely and not expected to live, she lay grey and lifeless, until I touched her tiny hand. She pushed my finger away and suddenly, the room was filled with golden light. A big rush of feeling entered the room too, so strong I almost fainted.

In January, this year, my daughter was very seriously ill and it was touch and go whether she would survive the impending surgery. As my husband and I walked into her room we both saw a nurse with curly chestnut hair, wearing a navy blue uniform.

She was leaning towards my daughter touching her shoulder.

As we got to the bed side she vanished and there was just my daughter's fiance sitting there. He is over 6 feet tall with broad shoulders and straight grey hair.

Against the odds, my daughter did survive, although her recovery was long, painful and slow.

My husband is a sceptic but he saw the nurse too.