Before proceeding I strongly urge you to read and hear the 10/20/13 seance transcript and video regarding the “Buddhist exorcism” the audience and I attempted to conduct in an effort to help “V,” the spirit of a 2-year-old toddler, escape and pass through the door to Heaven in accordance with the Tibetan Book of the Dead.
During the next show on 11/2/13 I was happy not to have heard from V, as it hopefully meant our so-called exorcism was successful and she moved forward.
Boy was I wrong. The following (and final) show on 11/3/13 left me completely floored. This is one of those good Ouija board stories. No possessed kittens, no dire warnings of doom, but a truly positive and spiritual experience. The Ouija board at its best. Read on…
Before proceeding I strongly urge you to read and hear the 10/20/13 seance transcript and video regarding the “Buddhist exorcism” the audience and I attempted to conduct in an effort to help “V,” the spirit of a 2-year-old toddler, escape and pass through the door to Heaven in accordance with the Tibetan Book of the Dead.
During the next show on 11/2/13 I was happy not to have heard from V, as it hopefully meant our so-called exorcism was successful and she moved forward.
Boy was I wrong. The following (and final) show on 11/3/13 left me completely floored. This is one of those good Ouija board stories. No possessed kittens, no dire warnings of doom, but a truly positive and spiritual experience. The Ouija board at its best. Read on… Continue reading “Boneyards EVP Log – 11/3/13”
“I try contacting the spirit world before live audiences to keep an element of hope simmering on the back burner of my mind.”- playwright and performance artist Jeffrey Stanley
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On Faith
Supernatural Skeptics Don’t Know What They’re Missing by Jeffrey Stanley
These ghosts are primed and ready to provide a ghoulish Halloween on the 500 block of Summit Ave in Jenkintown.
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.
Given the many millions of religious folks in the world (surveys tell us time and again that the vast majority of us believe in an afterlife) I am not alone in my desire for proof of a promise made long ago. I don’t want to be told it by a clergyman or a book or a website. I want to see it. Because of the world’s overwhelming belief in an afterlife I am always amazed at the number of people who are absolutely petrified of Ouija boards. Shouldn’t we be elated when the pointer, properly called a planchette, moves and spells out things? Shouldn’t we jump for joy when a spirit box calls out to us? Instead we flee in terror at the most innocuous of communications. I’m reminded of my good friend Steve who received a strict Catholic upbringing. Once as a teenager he played around with a Ouija board and it spelled out his dog’s name: HOBO. He ran shrieking from the room,
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.
October 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…
Drexel 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>>
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.
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. 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, MAMover 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? DAD.
Did he kill you, too? YES.
ME: Are you V? YES.
ME: V, I’m glad you’re here. We’re going to help you today. But Laura’s not your mom. Does she look like your mom? YES … MAM, MAM, MAM.
ME: V, we’re gonna try to help you. Stick around. Do you want to speak with us electrically? YES.
At that I crossed the room and fired up the P-SB7 spirit box as usual. Stunning results and transcript below. The raw footage is 9 minutes. I’ve cut it down to just the best minute or so of highlights with each EVP slowed down and made louder:
Still angry. [First thing outta their mouths and this is a direct carryover from the previous session when they made clear their sudden anger at me. I’m still hoping for an explanation so I can rectify whatever otherworldly faux pas I’ve apparently committed.]
Baby. [A direct response to our question at the Ouija board, “Are you a child?”]
Do you understand that? [In other words, are they coming through clearly on the spirit box.]
It’s Laura.[I had called out multiple times to the spirit box asking V, “Can you call out to Laura?…Can you call Laura’s name?” As you can see below it did so every single time I asked.]
Laura … On a Ouija board.
Come to us. [No, I don’t think this is a demonic invitation for us to join them in the netherworld a la Don’t Fear the Reaper as I don’t believe there’s anything evil residing in this sanctified building. I believe it’s just a further cry for help.]
Just go. [Not unusual for them to be in disagreement as I’ve learned from previous sessions here. One’s saying come to us and another’s telling us to just leave.]
Calls you Mommy, Laura. [Indeed V does.]
Laura.
Take in the girl … Laura. [Warning to Laura: Don’t offer to take her in! Don’t even think it! She’ll follow you home in nothing flat. I did that with Mala/Malala 2 years ago and she followed me around for months until I found her a good home as a playmate to the lonely ghost of the Small Boy known to haunt Plays & Players Theatre. Besides, there’s no need for V. to follow any of us home because we’re about to conduct a one-of-a-kind Buddhist exorcism to try and set her free.]
Help her.[This was toward the end of the session. I had just announced that I was about to try to help V. And their response?…]
…I love you.[Well, don’t love me yet but thanks for the vote of confidence in my novice exorcism abilities.]
I then wrapped up the show and the audience sat while I recited from pp. 230-238 of the edition of The Tibetan Book of the Dead pictured right (starting with, “O, child of Buddha-nature, that which is called death has now arrived…”) which provides instructions to the recently deceased on how to move forward and get outta here. I then rang a Tibetan Buddhist singing bowl several times.
We’ll see whether it worked during the next seance at the Saturday 11/2/13 show. With any luck we will not hear from little V again because she’ll be long gone where she belongs…
Built in 1850. Also called Ghum or Ghoom Monastery in the town of Ghum just outside of Darjeeling in northern India. Dig the wrathful deities. Photos taken January 2013.
