By 

Andy Owens 

Long Can is an award-winning, seventeenth century, Grade II listed building, set on the outskirts of Halifax, West Yorkshire. 

With its mullioned windows and fine stone façade, it looks every bit the traditional English manor, but as we drove towards it, up a steep hill and along a country lane, at the dead of night, I couldn’t help thinking of the Marston House in Salem’s Lot.

Why? 

My friend Chris, whose business partner had converted Long Can into a pub, had arranged for us to spend an evening there on a ghost hunt, as research for my new book – my next international worst-seller – and had made only one condition: that we experiment with a Ouija board.

‘I’m not playing Ouija!’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s evil!’

‘Don’t be such a wuss!’

‘I’m having nothing to do with it!’

‘Let me get this straight. You’re prepared to spend nights in haunted houses, hunting for ghosts and spirits – which, incidentally, don’t exist – and yet you don’t want to communicate with them?’

When Chris put it like that, I could see his point. What was the point of ghost hunting, armed to the tootsies with cameras and tape-recorders, if I wilfully avoided Ouija – the most commonly acknowledged form of communication between mankind and the spirit world?

But I had a question for him.

‘Bearing in mind that you don’t believe in the supernatural, what would you do if the Ouija board worked?’

Chris thought about this.

‘Then I would have to revise my ideas,’ he said.

So here I was, sacrificing my safe and comfortable existence to invasion by otherworldly forces. Dark denizens from distant dimensions could merrily strut their phantom foxtrot into my home, my mind, my very soul. A veritable legion of spirits, spooks and the entire cast of Rent-a-Ghost would follow me home and I would be forever goaded by ghosts, hounded by hauntings and plagued by poltergeists. And all these spiritual shenanigans just to afford Chris the opportunity to ‘revise’ his ideas. I didn’t like the sound of this at all. 

Like everyone else, I had heard bad things about Ouija.

Even cynics, who scoff at the supernatural and giggle at ghosts, will turn deathly silent at its mere mention. Their hoots of derision will quickly die away, as they cross themselves like devout worshippers and refuse even to discuss it. Ouija is far from a board game, they will argue. It is snakes and ladders for devils and demons. 

Recently, I had accompanied a paranormal research group to a haunted pub, which was ‘licensed to serve spirits’ (yawn), and we had all sat round a table with our fingers on a glass, encircled by letters from the alphabet, together with cards marked ‘Y’ and ‘N’ for Yes and No. 

This was termed Glass Divination – a method of spiritual communication – employed by many research groups. And I can’t recall anyone quaking like a jackhammer at the mere thought of it.

But how is this different from Ouija? As far as I can see, they are exactly the same.

How come Glass Divination is viewed as an acceptable paranormal experiment, while Ouija attracts evil beyond belief, inviting The Twilight Zone to set up camp in your lounge and Satan to build a bunk-house in your brain?

None of this made any kind of sense to me – or Chris.

He related how he had played Ouija at his own home with a couple of friends – and the glass had moved.

‘A-ha!’ I cried triumphantly.

‘A-ha nothing,’ replied Chris. ‘My mate was pushing it. You could tell. Besides, if there are evil spirits in my house, then they’ve been very quiet. Nothing weird has happened. If they were hurling my bed around the room, then I must have slept right through it, ’cos I didn’t feel a thing.’

Despite my objections, Chris had argued me out of the ring, like a linguistic Mike Tyson. So I had no choice but to agree.

I had originally heard of Long Can, many full moons ago, while researching for my first book. Webster’s Brewery, who used to own the building and used it as their visitor’s centre, suggested I contact the catering manageress, who had reported some spooky happenings. 

Sarah Thornton told me how she had heard a door open on the floor above, followed by the sound of footsteps, but when she investigated, there was no one there. A waitress had seen the image of a grey lady vanishing through the floorboards, and a cleaner had been tapped on the shoulder in the toilets while she was alone.

I had suggested that we invite a psychic to the house but Chris said we would be better without them. There is little more frustrating than a psychic saying they can sense a presence, when nobody else can see or sense anything. We wanted an impartial investigation without psychics, dowsing rods or a book of spells in sight.

Long Can was originally two cottages designed by local clothier James Murgatroyd, but was later converted into one large building. Now, it had now been entirely renovated, since Websters moved out, but there was still no furniture other than two chairs and a small table. And this was what worried me the most. For these are the furnishings of Ouija.

Once we had figured out which key fitted which door, we entered the main room. Leaving our equipment there, we set about stalking the house from top to bottom, unlocking further doors and switching on lights as we went, to get a feel for the place. 

For all his scepticism – no doubt partly fuelled by our ghost-free night at Chingle Hall, in Lancashire, (Britain’s most haunted) nine years previously – I admired the extent to which Chris had prepared for the vigil. He had printed out all the letters of the alphabet, all cut-out neatly onto squared paper, together with two larger squares with the words Yes and No printed on them.

Chris surmised that if he was wrong, if there were such things as ghosts, and they wanted to communicate, to relate a message from the other side, to warn us to leave Long Can immediately, with our tails (firmly intact) between our legs, never to return, or even – I hoped – give us the next winning Lotto numbers, then we would need a proper surface, to enable the glass to glide with ease. 

Chris wanted nothing – absolutely nothing – to stand in the way of supernatural communication. And then, if still nothing happened, it would confirm his view that all this Ouija stuff was a load of supernatural stinkers.

My thoughts turned to my writing.

‘If nothing ghostly happens, this will make a very short chapter,’ I said.

Chris sighed. 

‘Nothing ghostly is going to happen wherever you go, so it’s going to be a very short book.’

We each leaned forwards, placing fingers on the upturned glass, in the centre of the makeshift Ouija board, and took it in turns to utter the immortal line ‘Is Anybody There?’ punctuated by expectant pauses of anticipation.

‘Is There Anybody There?’

Silence.

‘Is There Anybody There?’

Silence.

After about fifteen minutes of this – and we had given any resident spirit the most blatant opportunity to get in touch – we brought the session to an end and packed up ready to go.

As we locked the outer door, and made our way to the car, we each cast an instinctive (hopeful?) look to the darkened windows, expecting to see someone or something that shouldn’t be there, but there was nothing but transparent glass reflecting the shadowy interior.

As we drove back home, Chris nodded in satisfaction. He had now spent two nights ghost-hunting. One playing the ’evil’ board game Ouija, and one in the most haunted house in England. And – as he expected – nothing had happened. 

Stinkers had won hands down.

Bullying and harassment in the Paranormal Field: EXPOSED!!

Hello guys im Charlene Kemp, I currently work for Ghosts of Britain. I am also a member of Para Police, A team of investigators who are trying to at least monitor the field to expose the fakes and basically exposing how activity can be faked to educate people to not believe everything they see on TV programmes and Youtube.

So over the past few weeks I have had numerous messages from various people within the paranormal field who have reported to me that they have suffered at some degree some kind of bullying and harassment from others who are in the field. As I take a part of the Para police I have felt that I need to raise awareness of this. Unfortunately within the paranormal community there are individuals who I would class as your school ground bullies. Who set out to destroy peoples personal lifes, business, reputation, events, evidence and basically torment a person to such a degree they feel that they no longer can continue in the field.

Another issue I also had was regarding a lady who claimed that she could 100% make contact with one of your love ones, initially I heard of this and was mad, how could any medium make should a big claim, in my eyes she was a con, she claimed you would be able to see, feel and have 100% contact with your past loved one for a price. So after hearing this I was 100% certain I was going to expose this lady, I was going to make an appointment with this lady and try and have her contact my ‘dead aunty sue’ ( I haven’t got a dead aunty sue) but if she made contact then this proved my exposure that she was a con. It wasn’t until I further looked into this lady that I realised something, I watched her videos and how she was on these and what she claimed to have and be. And actually realised that this lady infact has a severe mental health issues, she  has stated this in her videos and that she was being treated for such and claims to have helped others in a similar situation I had the hanging feeling that she may be in fact preying on those who suffer with a mental health problems. So I looked into her further and decided to give this lady a ring to see what she was about and how she was. Her behaviour on the phone also indicated and confirmed to me in my opinion that she did have some kind of mental health issue and it came across to me that she may have been quite medicated while speaking with her. I came to the decision to no publicly expose this lady, if others chose to then that is up to you.

This lady hosts such a demonstration in your home at a cost, but it has to be within her area. With this in mind my conclusion of this was due to what she may have she would in fact 100% believe she can contact any passed loved you wish and therefore wasn’t intentionally conning people has she fully believes she can even though in hindsight she properly cant and yes is conning people but this to me isn’t intentional. This then leads me on to my next part, because the field isn’t regulated in any way it allows such a person to work within the field, it is open to everyone, there is nobody to monitor it. If it was regulated in some way and we somehow had to register what we did to a panel of people to be considered to work in the field then maybe people who make such big claims wouldn’t be working within the field. As a result of this, understandably this lady has been subjected to negative posts regarding her claims, I understand why with the claims she is making but please bare in mind this lady is suffering with a mental illness and just because this lady looks physically well it does mean that this lady is well, and such posts could potentially trigger a massive un wanted reaction from this lady to herself, yourself or others, please bare this in mind.

My only warning to the public is if a medium is making such a claim please think before booking because you are most likely going to leave very disappointed after also paying for a service which someone could not provide for you or that you believed to not be true.

Some of the other complaints are as followed, potentially trying to close down a location, trying to cancel events, ringing the police to incidents which haven’t even occurred, passing messages to love ones and friends to turn them against the person, sending abuse which include threats, trying to destroy a peoples reputation within the field, constantly bombarding a person with messages of abuse, posts directed at another person or group, turning up at peoples places of work to give abuse even death threats!!…..the list is endless and seriously makes me question why I got into this field altogether.

The biggest problem I believe causing this is social media, messages are flew between people, screen shots are taken, this is then used as some kind of evidence against another person. Posts are directed at individuals and posters and mini videos made to take the mick out of who they are having the conflict with. This guys is childish!! And please bare in mind that I have been informed by many that there is indeed a app that is now available which enables a person to edit screen shots in some way.

You then have whose who take sides, these people only have heard half the story and cast a judgment before they have even spoken to the party being accused. There are two sides to a story as some would say three 😉 and before any judgement can be cast you should look at both sides instead of jumping on the band wagon and joining those who are causing the drama. I understand that sometimes people can pull the wool of people’s eyes but please bare in mind that you have only heard half the story before involving yourself.

If you have a disagreement with someone and it cannot be resolve then my best advice would be to please just delete that person, have no other contact with them, consider it a lesson learnt and move on. Easier said than done Im sure you are all sat there thinking…this is true but what you have to sit down and think about is why you are in this field….is it to make friends/enemies and slate each other or to gather some evidence, enjoy investigating the unknown and to find some comfort for yourself?

I know which one it is for me…..and if I meet some friends along the way who I trust then great (which I have may I add many) but if I hadn’t would I still have the passion and interest….yes I would.

Below is a Live Steam #TheparanormalSkeptic Lee Steer did regarding Bullying issues within the field, some of the legal jargon which surrounds it and what he feels is the best course of action to take.

Update

Here is another article by Claire Barrand 

Give it a read guys it raises some fantastic points 

http://www.clairebarrand.com/#!The-Unique-Reason-behind-Bullying-and-Personal-Attacks-within-the-Paranormal-Community-REVEALED/o8t7l/583739b5e417294c9dc7ab2c