GROVE CEMETERY
A small, abandoned cemetery that is overgrown, unkempt and subject to vandalism, Bachelor’s Grove Cemetery is one of Chicago’s most haunted sites. It is located on the edge of the Rubio Woods Forest Preserve, near the suburb of Midlothian, Illinois. There have been over a hundred paranormal incidents reported here, including inexplicable lights and voices, apparitions, strange photos, anomalous recordings and even sightings of magical creatures.
The first burial took place in 1844, but it wasn’t until 1864 that the cemetery became known as Bachelor’s Grove. This may have been because around this time a group of German immigrants, hired to help build the Illinois-Michigan Canal, settled on small farms nearby, and most of these settlers were unmarried men. Burials became less frequent in the 1960s, and the last recorded burial was in 1989.
It was in the 1960s that stories of hauntings began. Unfortunately, this was also when the vandalism and desecration began, and today the cemetery is in a terrible condition. Vandals have left few of the graves still standing, and many tombstones have been stolen or dumped elsewhere, giving rise to legends that the gravestones sometimes move by themselves.
The reporting of strange phenomena peaked in the 1970s and 1980s, but hauntings continue to be reported to this day, including flashing lights and phantom vehicles. The strange lights are said to be red or blue in colour, dancing just out of reach of those who chase them, as if the lights had an intelligence of their own. Phantom cars appear and disappear on the cemetery path. One couple even had a car crash with a vehicle that vanished before their eyes, leaving their own untouched despite the sounds of bending metal and breaking glass.
The most-often reported apparition at Bachelor’s Grove is a vanishing house or floating house. Access to the cemetery is gained by way of a narrow gravel trail that was once a main road through the area. Along this trail, many visitors have reported seeing a phantom farmhouse that seems to appear and disappear at random. The house is always seen from a distance and described in the same way, as a white house with porch pillars, a swing and a soft light burning in the window, but it is never reported in the same place. As witnesses approach the house, it shrinks and disappears. According to legend, anyone who succeeds in entering the house will never return.
Just past the fence surrounding the cemetery is a small lagoon that borders the nearby turnpike road. This pond was a favourite corpse dumping ground for Chicago gangsters during the years of Prohibition, so it isn’t surprising that the pond is thought to be haunted. One ghost linked to the lagoon is said to be a two-headed man, reported on many occasions. Others report seeing a ghostly farmer who was pulled into the water by his plough and horse in the 1870s. The horse was drowned by the weight of the plough, taking the farmer with it.
Still others report seeing people dressed in monks’ robes, and in 1984 the vision of a glowing yellow man was reported. In the 1990s several people reported seeing a large black dog near the entrance, which would vanish as people appeared, perhaps as a warning to go no further. The most famous ghost is the ‘White Lady’ or the ‘Madonna of Bachelor’s Grove’, who has been seen on nights of the full moon, wandering the cemetery with a baby in her arms. She is said to be the ghost of a woman buried there, next to her young son.
Paranormal investigators have reported electronic voice phenomena at Bachelor’s Grove, with the names of those buried there being called out repeatedly. There have been many attempts to capture Bachelor’s Grove phenomena on film, and plenty of photographs exist with images resembling ectoplasm. Perhaps the most famous photograph of Bachelor’s Grove was taken in 1991 by Mari Huff, a member of the Ghost Research Society. It shows a waiflike transparent young woman dressed in old-fashioned clothes sitting on a crumbling tombstone. According to Huff, this woman was not visible when the picture was taken. Sceptics argue that the photo is a double exposure, but a number of professional photographers do believe it to be genuine.
BAKECHOCHIN
Translated as ‘haunted lantern’, in Japanese folklore a bakechochin is a lantern inhabited by ghosts. According to lore the lantern has a long tongue and wild eyes and is home for the ghosts of people who died with hate in their hearts; for this reason, they are doomed to haunt the earth for all time. If someone should light one of these haunted lanterns, it is thought that a hateful ghost may leap out of it and attack.
BALANCE
Achieving the harmonious interaction of light and dark, masculine and feminine, Yin and Yang, and creative and receptive energies in mind, body and emotions is an integral part of meditation, dreamwork, psychic development or any creative work on personal growth.
Many situations in life can prevent balance in mind, body and emotions. You may be thrown off balance by the people around you, by your environment, by feelings of fear or anger or by psychic information you receive. It is easy to be overwhelmed by these stimuli, both external and internal, and psychics believe that one of the most important aspects of psychic growth is the ability to keep oneself balanced, to stay rooted within yourself whatever is going on around or inside you.
Visualizing a golden light or bubble around you to protect yourself from distraction, self-doubt or misfortune is a technique often used by psychics to encourage inner balance, as is reconnecting with the earth after psychic work by going for a walk or taking a drink of water to ground yourself again in everyday reality.
BALLECHIN HOUSE
Hauntings at Ballechin House in Tayside, Scotland, came to public attention in the late 1890s, but they had been reported there for several decades before.
In 1806 Ballechin House was built by the Stuart family, and in 1834 Robert Stuart inherited the house from his father and rented it out to tenants while he was posted to India with the army. He returned in 1850 after achieving the rank of Major.
From his years in India, the Major had come to believe in reincarnation and transmigration, the ability of the soul to inhabit a non-human body. He vowed that when he died he would return to Ballechin in the body of his favourite black spaniel -he preferred the company of dogs to humans. Although he never married, he did enjoy the company of a young housekeeper called Sarah, who died mysteriously - it was said in his bed - at the age of 27, in 1873. Major Stuart died a few years later and was buried beside her at Logierait churchyard.
In his 1853 will the Major left Ballechin House to his nephew, John Stuart, who, fearful that the Major might be reincarnated as one of his dogs, cruelly shot all the Major’s hounds, starting with the black spaniel. This later would lead to the theory that the Major was forced to remain a disembodied spirit, haunting the house in protest. John Stuart was a devout Roman Catholic; his aunt, the Major’s sister Isabella, had become a nun and, after her death in 1880, was said to make ghostly appearances to visitors.
Almost immediately after the Major’s death in 1876 strange happenings were reported. One day in the Major’s study, Mrs Stuart noticed a strong smell of dogs in the room. She opened the window to let some air in and felt a nudge on her leg, as if an invisible dog had rubbed itself against her. This was followed a few days later by knocking sounds and the sound of gunfire and voices quarrelling. There were also sounds of someone limping around the master bedroom. Soon Ballechin House got a reputation for being haunted, and governesses and servants would flee the house in fear.
The Stuarts managed to live in the house for more than twenty years,
