Boneyards Final Shows This Weekend

Come wake the dead. Jeffrey Staney’s BONEYARDS returns for 2 final shows this Saturday and Sunday 11/2 and 11/3. Meanwhile please enjoy Stanley’s latest religion article in today’s Washington Post about my experiences contacting the dead as performance art over the past few years.

Come wake the dead.  BONEYARDS returns for 2 final shows this Saturday and Sunday 11/2 and 11/3 in Philadelphia.  Times and tickets.

Meanwhile please enjoy my latest article in today’s Washington Post about my theatrical experiments in contacting the dead as performance art over the past two years.  Thank you for your support and patronage, and Happy Halloween.

wapobanner2October 31, 2013

On Faith
Supernatural Skeptics Don’t Know What They’re Missing
by Jeffrey Stanley

I try contacting the spirit world before live audiences to keep an element of hope simmering on the back burner of my mind.

I like Ouija boards. I’ve used them since I was a teenager.  More recently I’ve messed around with electric spirit boxes, also known as Frank’s boxes after their inventor Frank Sumption.  They’re radio receivers which allow you to listen to and record voices of the dead, also known as EVPs (Electronic Voice Phenomena) or Raudive voices, after one of their early discoverers.  Over the past two years I have frequently used Ouija boards and spirit boxes in my performance art, attempting to conjure up the dead as my co-stars before a live audience.  At one of the universities where I teach playwriting and screenwriting part-time I am also the faculty adviser for a student-led paranormal investigation club.  Friends and fans assume I am a true believer but the truth is that I am not.  I am a healthy skeptic.  And that’s depressing for me because it means that on some level I feel certain there’s nothing out there. I try contacting the spirit world before live audiences to keep an element of hope simmering on the back burner of my mind. CONT’D>>

And also out today from Drexel University a story about the PIG of which I’m the proud faculty adviser…

drexelnow_overDrexel Paranormal Investigators Haunted by the Unknown
by Alissa Falcone
…It doesn’t hurt that the group’s faculty adviser also has an interest with the undead: By day, Jeffrey Stanley teaches classes in the Westphal College of Media Arts & Design’s Screenwriting and Playwriting Department, but at night he transforms into undead residents of cemeteries from all over the world during “Boneyards,” his performance that imagines supernatural comic monologues.CONT’D at drexel.edu>>

 

Boneyards EVP Log – 10/20/13

Ghost: “Come to us.” Before proceeding I urge you, gentle reader, to read and view the previous show’s (10/17/13) seance summary as there is a direct carryover with this one culminating in my effort to conduct a “Buddhist exorcism,” for lack of a better description, on the 2-year-old “V,” a recent arrival at the synagogue and not one of the 12 original ghosts at this location that I call the Synagogue Saints.

All caught up now? Great, you may proceed.

1920-SeanceBefore proceeding I urge you, gentle reader, to read and view the previous show’s (10/17/13) seance summary as there is a direct carryover with this one culminating in my effort to conduct a “Buddhist exorcism,” for lack of a better description, on the 2-year-old “V,” a recent arrival at the synagogue and not one of the 12 original ghosts at this location that I call the Synagogue Saints.

All caught up now? Great, you may proceed.  At the show’s climax audience volunteers Eric and Kristen personed the board.   We at first assumed we were speaking with an adult spirit (or subconscious ideomotor impulse, depending on your beliefs) but then it kept spelling MAM, MAM, MAM over and over. At first we thought it was their initials but it told us NO.

Do you know anyone here?  YES. 

Who? LAURA.  

Yep, there was indeed a Laura in the house who looked decidedly freaked at seeing her name spelled out on the Ouija board.  How do you know Laura?

The response was more MAM over and over again.

LAURA: I don’t know anyone with those initials.

ME:  It’s talking like a child saying the same word over and over. I think we’ve got a kid here.

MY USHER SUSAN: Do you mean MOM?  YES … MAM, MAM, MAM.

Indeed the repetition was childlike and rather sad.  We imagined a young child calling for its mother over and over and not sure how to spell it. This is extremely similar to my encounter with young MALA/MALALA 2 years ago during BZ:ABOTD who wound up following me from the Blue Grotto in West Philly to Plays & Players Theatre and taking up residence there but that’s another story.  In short, it seems children who have died violent deaths are particularly frightened and stuck, not sure how to move on. Heartbreakingly, they especially want to find their mothers.

Where’s your real mom? KILLED. 

Who killed her? Continue reading “Boneyards EVP Log – 10/20/13”

Boneyards EVP Log – 10/17/13

IMG_2813After a month’s hiatus we’re back online, folks. Boneyards is back from the dead to rock your underworld just in time for Halloween. Only 3 shows left–10/20, 11/2 and 11/3. Last night’s 10/17 show was the kickoff. Read on–

Something quite phenomenal happened at last night’s seance that closes every show.

IMG_2813After a month’s hiatus we’re back online, folks. Boneyards is back from the dead to rock your underworld just in time for Halloween. Only 3 shows left — 10/20, 11/2 and 11/3.  Last night’s 10/17 show was the kickoff. Read on —

Something quite phenomenal happened at last night’s seance that closes every show. In short, a dead kid needs our help and  I intend to help her. Will you join me?  At first, our two Ouija volunteers Kathryn and Geoff (with verbal help from Questioner Karen and myself) got the planchette to tell us its initial, V, and that it was years old.  This has happened to me before but rarely; a child spirit that has been around for many, many years will take on a certain adultlike maturity even while remaining childlike in its answers and overall behavior.  This was borne out as V, when answering a question, would point to the star shape on the Ouija board rather than spelling a complete word, just like any 2-year-old might.  In a different context it might have been adorable.  V did confirm that she was standing to my right (I held out my right hand and asked if she was near it or near my other hand), and that she was not alone. This didn’t surprise me as I already assumed that the 12 Synagogue Saints, as I call them, were in the room with us.  But V told us that only 5 were present.  I don’t know why, but I feel that V was a little girl although gender was never specifically discussed.

I crossed the room and fired up the P-SB7 spirit box.

Meanwhile at the Ouija board, the planchette moved to YES and stayed firmly planted; not just sitting there but refusing to move. If you’ve used a Ouija board a lot you know what I mean. We switched Ouija volunteers numerous times in an effort to “warm up” the board, like tuning in a radio, but the result was always the same.  The planchette was firmly planted on YES.  Prior to this, the planchette had also been moving extremely slowly and we cracked jokes that maybe it was an old woman who has visited us in a previous session.  At that the spirit box called out “Lazy!” loud and clear across the room (see the full EVP video and transcript below).

But there is a larger picture unfolding here, readers.  This kid,  this perished toddler, V, is frightened and asking for our help. Some of the spirits around her are also asking us to help her.  I’ll tell you what I plan to try in the upcoming show this Sunday, but first get the full picture–

As always the raw footage is 5 minutes long. I’ve cut it down to the most audible highlights. Every EVP has also been slowed Continue reading “Boneyards EVP Log – 10/17/13”