Who ya' gonna call?

Howdy readers. Time for a quick blog.

Yesterday evening Benji and I went ghost hunting at Tamworth caslte! We set off at 5:30pm and got on to the M42. I had just given Benji an estimate of the time we would be at the castle when I realised that I had missed the turning I wanted and ended up on the M6. (I hate the way the M42 splits off its self, it really is crap.) After doing a bit of Jiggery-pokery with a couple of junctions and a stretch of the A556, I got us back on track. We reached the car park at 6:30pm and walked up to the castle. There were people waiting outside and they all looked ready to start catching ghosts (or spirits. There is a very distinct difference, apparently!) Everyone had torches and warm clothes (One woman had brought an industrial spotlight lantern!.. She was told by the guide that it was a bit "exessive")

We were let in at 7:00pm by "Carol" who worked at the castle and was a practicing medium. (She had already qualified as a small...! ha-ha... sorry.) We were seated in the great hall in a semi-circle and were given coffee. Carol then introduced Paul, who was the host and also a medium. The mandatory health & safety talk was given and we spent 10 minutes chatting and asking him questions (such as "what do you think of Derek Accorah?" since Most Haunted did a programme in Tamworth castle, and Carol had been on T.V!) We then started the "History Tour" led by Carol and another lady (who wasn't a medium, but she had seen and heard things whilst working at the castle at night.) This lasted about an hour, Carol was "sensing energy" in most of the rooms, and it set the mood for the rest of the evening. After the history tour it was back in to the hall for coffee and cake. Paul then introduced the main psychic/medium of the evening. "Ian" was a short bloke in his early fifties and looked a bit like Dennis from Auf Wiedersehen, pet. He was from Lincolnshire and has been a working medium for about 15 years.

He started by answering questions from the group. One guy, who was dressed in an anorak/ bobble-hat ensemble and resembled a train-spotter having an evening off, asked about the difference between ghosts and spirits. Ian explained it like this:

Everyone emits an energy. This energy is commonly called an "aura" and has the capacity to record every single piece of information about you from the day you were born until the day you die. When you cease to exist, the aura remains behind and finds a place (or even places) where it feels comfortable. Because it records emotions, injuries, thoughts, e.t.c, parts of it will settle in a particular place relevent to it, or, it can divide and the individual thoughts and feelings will find places relevent to them. It then remains as an energy form. This residual energy is a ghost. It is not sentient, it can not talk to a medium. The meduim has to read the energy aura to find out what the person was like. (I.e good, bad, depressed, happy e.t.c.) Thus, a "ghost" is nothing more than a persons aura being bound to a place or object. It can not move, it is a totally localised entity that acts as a "spiritual fingerprint" of the person it was once part of. This actually has a basis in science. Physics tells us that you cannot create or destroy energy, merely move it from place to place. when a person dies, the energy that surrounds the body has to go somewhere. It cannot simply "stop being energy"

On the other hand, a spirit is a sentient being capable of communication, interaction, and in some cases, possesion. The spirit of a person does not need to be created via a sudden or unexpected death (as is widely believed) and the whole "unfinished business" thing is, apparently, a load of bollocks. A spirit is not "waiting to go to heaven" at all. It is created when the energy within the body is so strong that it remains after death and is imprinted with the memory of the person. However... Because spirits are removed from emotion and needs, as well as the perception of time (because such thoughts are not transfered) they perceive everything in their own time period and do not adjust to changes made to the world. This actually goes a long way to explain the whole "walking through walls" thing. In actual fact, spirits do NOT walk through walls at all. Let us imagine a house with a long entrace hall in the early Edwardian period. Now let us imagine that a man of very good nature dies in that house and his spirit remains. Centuries later, when the house is in need of desperate structural work, it is re furbished, but the entrace hall is split in to two seperate rooms with the addition of a modern wall. The spirit of the man who once walked the entrance hall will still be able to traverse it as one room, but in doing so, he will have to pass through the new wall. Although to him it is not there because it was not there at the time the spirit was created... Simple!

After all this explaining had finished it was time to set off again on the walk. We followed Paul first up to one small room to recieve our equipment. He produced a tub of assorted electronics, and everyone could pick one item. There were "ambient-probe thermometers" "laser controlled surface thermometers" and "ultra low EMF scanners" I chose an EMF (Electro Magnetic Field) scanner, (just like this one) and Benji chose a laser thermometer, (just like this one!)

Before we left the room we set up some "control objects." Some coins and a goblet were placed on a piece of paper and traced round, by a member of the group. the keys to the room were given to another member of the group who locked the room behind them....

We set off and did the same rooms as the history tour, all be it in a slightly different order. Ian was leading the way, and Paul was making sure no one got left behind. Various ghosts were detected by Ian who told us names and places or various people. The first real spirit, however, didn't show its self until the 4th or 5th room. when we entered we were told to stand perfectly still. It was dark, but not pitch black... Quiet. Ian started asking the spirit questions and if it could pespond... Quiet. Then he started going on about a lady... More quiet.......

.......................................................................................................... *ping*

Every single woman (and a few blokes) went ballistic! absolutely bricking it was the anorak, who was the first out the door... Ian and Paul assured us that it wasn't a malevolant spirit and it was a perfectly normal response, in a voice that didn't seem bothered at all.

After he had settled everone down we continued. Everyone got the chance to "stand in energy" which had the effect of one girl having to sit down because she felt ill. Ian explained that she was more "receptive" at this sort of thing and it had overwhelmed her senses.... apparently. He was then pointing out where the spirit energies were and, apparently there was a little girl sitting in the chair on the right of this table.

I took the picture with my phone just in case anything actually turned up on the photo. Alas I did not capture a ghost on my phone. In fact I'm not quite sure what I would have done if I had, come to think of it...

Ah, well it was worth a go.








More rooms, more knocks and bumps. People were becoming used to it and started to enjoy the evening. I was still a little un-convinced when we returned to the hall at 11:30pm for a break. We were then asked if we would like to go anywhere else, with a member of staff, for another look at a particular room. One bedroom was meant to be quite good for getting spirity things going on so Carol took about 8 of us up for another scan...

... And then it happened. It was quite warm in the room, because the heating was on, but as I walked round I hit a spot that was extemely cold. Cold as in "bloody hell it's a bit nippy over here" yet the heater, that was keeping the rest of the room warm, was no more than 10 feet away. People laser scanned it and sure enough, that one spot on the floor was about 4 degrees colder than a spot 4 feet away... and the cold spot was closer to the heater! I moved out of it and held my hand out to where I was standing and by the time I pulled it away, my right hand was significantly colder than my left..... strange.

I kept an open mind and we headed back down to the hall at 12:00 midnight for the next part of the evening. Ian explained that they would be starting the "Vigils." Not exactly a seance, but something to envoke energy (or something like that, I wasn't paying attention.)

We split in to 2 groups. Ian had the first half of the group, which me and Benji were in, while Paul had the other. The plan was to swap half way through so that every person went round with both mediums.

Ian had people stood holding hands (I made sure I was between two girls for this!) and standing quietly while he asked for any energies to appear to him. We did this in multiple rooms and at one point he had Benji standing in a spirit energy to see if it could manipulate him.... (nice!) The spirit either didn't like him or wasn't interested so left him alone. In various rooms people were complaining of a sudden wave of nausea when they entered, and some got a headache in a particular spot, which Ian described as being common... Strange.

The really interesting stuff happened when we all changed, though. We swapped at about 12:30 and went with Paul up to one of the smaller bedrooms that we had been in before. Paul used the "ball of light technique" which the circle of people (holding hands) imagined a ball of light above their heads. They then mentally passed that ball to the person on their left, and thus create an invisible ring of light above the group. we then had to "breathe in" some of the light which was very good for making you feel like a complete berk. He then challenged the spirits to tough somebody...

... All of a sudden a lady called Bernardette started to sway and complain of feeling dizzy... And then she fainted! proper out cold. Paul had to carry her out. I was on the verge of saying that perhaps she was a plant, and was supposed to faint on demand. This all went out the window when I saw her afterwards. She had red eyes, her glands were swollen, and she was shaking, as well as feeling very cold. If she was acting, it was a bloody-good performance! Paul said that she was in "Full-trance" and that he had only ever seen it happen once before. Whilst in there I decided to try another photo in the pitch black "Just in case" and this is the result.....


.... And it looks rather interesting. The brownish area in the lower left is the floor. To my right, out of shot, is a bed. And I was facing a dark red wall. I'm not sure what the white object is! the only white object in the room was a lady stood behind me in a cream-coloured fleece. I showed it to Paul afterwards and he seemed interested. Hey, if I can help solve hard-hitting spiritualist questions about the after-life, then thats fine by me!




We carried on to a large room with all display cases in it. Bernardette rejoined us after about 20 minutes and sat on one of the seats. We started the "ball of light" thing again and about 2 minutes in we heard this strange "sucking" noise coming from the corner. Bernadette was at it again and this time sounded like she was being strangled. 4 people carried her down stairs whilst I led the way with my torch. Ian, who had finished before us, met us in the hall and the look on his face was actaully quite worried. He went all "Derek Accorah" on us and started shouting at the spirit to "get out" and "leave her alone", yadda-yadda-yadda. It was now about 1:15am so we gathered round, while Bernardette was recovering, to go and do the last part of the evening.... Glass tipping.

Our gadgets were collected in and we went back to check the trigger objects. None had been tampered with... Bugger.

We then went in to the guard room, which we had not been in to, to start. Ian asked for 4 volunteers, of which I was one, to place a finger on the glass on the table in the centre of the room. We did. Now it must be pointed out that I wasn't willing to believe this would work so I sneakily felt under the table to make sure there was anything rigged. There wasn't. I then tested how easy it was to push the glass when your finger is on top of it, rather than on the edge. As it turns out, the answer is "not very."

I ask you to test it out. take a glass tumbler and place it upside down on a table. now place your finger in the middle of the glass, NOT on the edge. Try pushing it. It is rather hard unless you really push down, and then push forward hard, so that ruled out the possibility of anyone moving it. (It should also be noted that the table had a table cloth on it, which would create a crease if the glass was pushed hard anyway.) I was asked by Ian if I would like to "summon" so I did (feeling a little foolish in doing so)

However....

I wasn't laughing when after saying "If there are any spirits with us in the room, please move the glass towards me, the bloody thing, after about 10 seconds, twisted, and came towards me about 4 inches. I claimed it was one of the other 3 pushing on it but they were quite shocked themselves, and were ready to blme me for PULLING it! I asked it if it was a male, and to "move the glass" if the answer was yes....... Nothing...

... *Kshhhh*

"Oh lordy"

*Kshhhh*

The damned thing was moving in a circle, gliding about the cloth without any friction. Now even I was convinced, since it would have required all 4 of us to move the glass in sync' to get it to turn.

After succesfully freaking everyone out, the 4 people were changed, and I was signalled to by Paul that that was a good response and, apparently, I'm quite good at summoning because I have "that type of voice" I'm not sure quite what that meant, and thought it best not to ask. Benji had a go on the glass with some other people and got a bit of life from it.

Then 4 girls tried it.... And it went everywhere! Ian was randomly shouting names as the information was whittled down to a soldier who died in the castle in the 1300's. We stopped when people wanted to seriously get out of the room, and so we all converged back in the hall at 2:00am. After saying goodbye to everyone the group split up and left.

I shot up the M42 and got back on the A435 at about 2:30. After dropping benji off home, and coming back in to Wythall it was about 2:50, and I went straight to bed.

I think I will avoid all occurances with the occult from now on... It's far too strange for the likes of me, no matter how good a Summoner I am!

Right. I have to go and play with some more spirits now... The kind you drink, that is.

TTFN Readers.

*Go To: www.aura-artz.co.uk and click "overnight ghost hunts" on the right side of the page, about half way down. In the table, click "Tamworth Castle" to view the report for the evening.