IN 2008, as part of a series on hauntings in the south-west, MATT NEAL and JADE McLAREN visited a number of spooky hot-spots to see if they could have a paranormal encounter. In the final installment, they headed to the Warrnambool cemetery with some fellow sceptics to hold a seance.
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THE mind is a powerful thing.
It can believe, it can be deceived, it can fool itself, it can be hypnotised, it can play tricks on you.
As this series has progressed, I’ve become more convinced that people’s paranormal experiences are more to do with what goes on in the mind, rather than the surroundings.
It’s the people who believe in ghosts that are usually more likely to see or encounter them. Is this because their minds are more open or because they convince themselves that these things are there? Is it because they want to believe and therefore they do?
I want to believe. I really wanted to have some kind of paranormal encounter while investigating these hauntings with Jade McLaren. We hoped that by putting ourselves in potentially spooky situations, we might finally get the proof we needed to believe in ghosts. After all, seeing is believing.
But so far nothing — not even anything mildly spooky that could be explained rationally yet was still kind of spooky anyway.
For our last mission, we decided to take things up a notch. If the ghosts weren’t going to call on us, we were going to call them.
We headed to the Warrnambool cemetery at midnight to hold a seance. And finally, something spooky happened.
★★★★★
A SEANCE is supposedly a way of communicating with the dead. Typically it involves a ouija board — a piece of wood or paper marked with the alphabet, numbers 0-9, and the words ‘‘yes’’, ‘‘no’’ and ‘‘goodbye’’ – and a triangular pointer called a planchette.
Everyone — usually no more than four people — sits around the ouija board, each with two fingers on the planchette. You then invite good spirits to join your group and answer your questions. Theoretically, the spirits reply by moving the planchette around the board to spell out answers. The seance-holders act as a conduit for the dead. It’s like a telephone for ghosts.
Five of us headed to the Warrnambool cemetery after dark to see if we could contact the dead — Jade (who I have accompanied on all the ghost-hunting missions to date), Brady (who came to the Port Fairy cemetery with Jade and I), Gareth (the only one in the group who had attended a seance before), and our resident biblical and folklore expert Chris, who would be our medium for the night.
We arrived at the cemetery’s gazebo around 11pm. Cross-legged, we sat around the ouija board, which was drawn up on a piece of laminated A4 paper.
Chris began to prepare the area. ‘‘We need the four elements,’’ he explained as he lit candles (fire) and incense (air), filled shot glasses with water, and encircled us in a ring of salt (earth).
All we had read on seances suggested a prayer before we started, much like medium Tracey Mercer had suggested asking for protection from the angels on mine and Jade’s first ghost hunting mission to the Elephant Bridge Hotel at Darlington. Chris read a psalm he had selected.
As there was five of us, I acted as scribe while the other four placed their fingers on the planchette.
★★★★★
THERE has only been one rule on our ghost hunting missions — no pranks. No jokes, no hoaxes, no tricks, no shenanigans. We have to be able to rule pranks out of our research in case something happens. It also makes what happened next all the more eerie.
It’s suggested that you ‘‘warm up’’ the planchette before starting a seance by getting everyone to move it around in circles.
Once this was done, Chris asked for any positive spirits with knowledge to share to join us. ‘‘Is there anyone there?’’ he asked.
We waited. Nothing. We warmed the planchette up some more. Chris asked again.
Slowly the planchette began to move to ‘‘yes’’.
Everyone was intrigued and surprised. No one had consciously moved the planchette.
Chris continued to ask questions. ‘‘What is your name?’’
The planchette moved to W. Then E. Then K. WEK.
‘‘WEK. Are they your initials?’’. The planchette moved to ‘‘yes’’ again.
‘‘Are you a man are or a woman?’’ W.
‘‘How old were you when you died?’’ 2. H.
The H didn’t make much sense but Chris ploughed on. ‘‘Were you two when you died?’’ Yes.
‘‘What year did you die?’’ 1937.
‘‘Where were you born?’’ Ipswich.
Ok, that was weird. The planchette spelt ‘‘Ipswich’’.
‘‘In Queensland?’’ No.
‘‘In Britain?’’ Yes.
‘‘Did you die in Warrnambool?’’ Yes.
‘‘Are you buried in this cemetery?’’ Yes.
‘‘What is your family name?’’ KEK. The planchette stalled on the K. Kek? That’s not a surname any of us have ever heard.
‘‘Do you have a message for us?’’ Yes.
‘‘Does the message pertain to how you died?’’ No.
‘‘Is the message for the group?’’ Yes.
Then slowly and methodically, the planchette spelled JADE. We all looked at Jade.
‘‘Is it for Jade or about Jade?’’ Chris asked. VU.
This made no sense. ‘‘Are they initials?’’ No. Then the planchette spelt out three letters — LUV.
Any further questions were met with nothing, and eventually we thanked the spirit and moved the planchette to ‘‘goodbye’’.
★★★★★
OK, that was weird. Everyone swore they weren’t pushing the planchette, so everyone was a little spun-out, and each said they felt the pressure was coming from the opposite side of where they were sitting. Everyone said they were trying to touch the planchette as lightly as possible.
We discussed the posssibility of autosuggestion, that maybe we moved it without consciously meaning to because we wanted it to move.
The spelling of ‘‘Ipswich’’ was fairly compelling but not totally convincing. If none of us had known of a place called Ipswich, that would be some serious evidence. But everyone agreed that as soon as the planchette moved to the I and then the P, we figured it was going to spell Ipswich.
Did we just guide it there? We conducted a couple more seances before calling it a night. The next spirit spelt out SOVE when we asked its name but then quickly moved the planchette to ‘‘goodbye’’.
The final spirit spelt out its name as ‘‘Curt Duemf’’.
It’s hard to tell what the seance meant. Is there something else out there, or is it a good example of the power of the mind?
★★★★★
END NOTE: This story was originally published in The Standard in 2008.
