Is there a Ghost in the House?
How do you tell if a place is haunted? While there are tools to record images, sounds, phantom lights, and apparitions, most people get a general “feeling” or experience something without using paranormal equipment.
It’s a question raised on ghost tours often: “Is there a ghost in the house?” or “How do you know if the house is haunted?” Sometimes guests say, “It’s not haunted. I’ve been to that place and have never experienced anything.”
My response is always, “Have you ever experienced a haunting anywhere – ever?” I rarely get a yes response. When they say “no” or look at me blankly, I always say, “One must have an open heart to experience the spirit world. You have to believe in the possibility and be open to it. A person who is closed will rarely have an experience.
My own experience with living in a haunted house taught me this. If you’re open, the spirits – if present – will make themselves known. We lived in an old Victorian house for twenty years, constantly in the presence of spirits. I experienced them, my husband experienced them, and all of our children and grandchildren at one time or another connected with the paranormal in that house. Living there compelled me to write my first book (and subsequent 3 books), and it moved me to start a ghost tour company.
But before we lived in that old Victorian, a Baptist preacher and his wife lived there for almost 40 years. They never experienced anything. But they were closed to the possibility. They had a firm Christian belief system that didn’t allow for the presence of “spirits.” So they never had paranormal experiences.
The two families that owned the house before the Baptist family suffered mental illnesses and tragedy. One family member committed suicide, and another was committed to a mental institution and died there. Another fell six feet to the ground out of a bathroom window.
While the Baptists had a peaceful and happy experience living in that house, the other two families experienced continuous tragedy. The emotional traumas wore a hole in the veil separating the worlds – a vortex where spirits easily pass in and out.
Rackliffe House – the Haunted Trifecta
The Rackliffe House, built in 1740, is known for hitting the “haunted trifecta,” meaning that the house was the scene of a murder, a suicide, and an accidental death. Such a combination almost always wears a hole in the veil and creates a kind of vortex similar to the one in my old home. It has a 200-year legacy of being haunted and was finally restored with love and care in the early 2000s.
Though the stories of it being haunted were well-known in the community, several of the Rackliffe House Board members took issue with my putting the house and the stories on our Berlin and Ocean City Ghost Tours . They felt that being referred to as haunted detracted from the integrity of the historic property. And …. yes…. they said they had never felt anything in there. Never had an experience. Never saw a ghost. They said – It Wasn’t Haunted.
When I asked a few of those doubting members if they’d ever had a paranormal experience in any other place, at any time in their lives. The response was as I expected. No.
I told them they were likely not open to such experiences therefore, they were closed. And that’s okay. But it doesn’t limit others from having experiences. Then I identified some of the stories of Rackliffe House hauntings and paranormal activity.
Several teams of paranormal investigators had data supporting a wide range of paranormal activity. The majority of people who lived at Rackliffe House or visited there prior to the restoration had detailed stories of activity – one such story was printed in a local paper… AND Rackliffe House’s beloved historian, Tom Patton, who supported the restoration and chronicled much of its history in his book Listen to the Voices, Follow the Trail has an entire chapter dedicated to the ghost stories at Rackliffe. Other members of the Board and docents who serve at Rackliffe (now a museum) have privately said there are unexplained events that occur there … all pleasant, nothing super scary … but definite.
That scenario is repeated so many times when researching and chronicling the history of haunted properties. While no one can prove the point of either side, those open tend to sense the difference in the two worlds. And some are so sensitive that they seem to walk in both worlds at once.
Get on the Berlin or Ocean City Ghost Tour and hear more about the Rackliffe House.
Or Visit the Rackliffe House Museum yourself and get the “feel” of the place.
