Haunted Halls of Ivy

W. Barefoot, Daniel. Haunted Halls of Ivy: Ghosts of Southern Colleges and Universities. Detroit: Detroit Publishing Company, 2004. 87-91. Print.




I read the book Haunted Halls of Ivy: Ghosts of Southern Colleges and Universities by Daniel W. Barefoot. My book is basically a collection of thirty nine ghost stories about ghosts that take up residents in the universities and colleges throughout thirteen southern states. For more than two hundred years college professors and college students have witnessed and reported supernatural occurrences that they have experienced throughout college life. Many of these schools have had students who have committed suicide, committed murders, or died from accidental causes. Vivid reports of paranormal activity in the places where these unfortunate students lost their lives offer the idea that the spirits of these people reside there. The cool thing about this book is that after you have read the stories that have taken place in these colleges, you can visit and form your own opinion on these spirits that have supposedly roamed the halls for many years. One particular story that was scary to me was the story of Isabella from Northwestern State University in Louisiana. Isabella was beautiful and had many suitors, but when a dashing young man from the East came to Natchitoches on business one day, she fell deeply in love and the couple agreed to marry. Just days before the wedding, her lover was killed in a duel, rumored to be a duel over another woman’s heart. Isabella was devastated and decided to become a nun. On a stormy night the sisters in the convent grew scared and decided to go down to the basement, but not Isabella. She locked her door and stayed in her room. The next day the sisters came to check on her and found “a knife thrust through her heart and her bloody handprint stained a wall” (Barefoot 88). Not long after her burial her ghost began roaming the halls of the convent, which was later acquired by the state of Louisiana to serve as the campus of Louisiana State Normal School. Isabella’s ghost remained throughout all the changes that the building went through. The school went through many changes. In 1944, the state legislature changed the name of the school to Northwestern State University. Isabella has kept residence in the school although some of the halls she once resided in have been torn down. Some of the students even throw her parties for her spirit to move to new parts of the school. Nobody knows if she is happy with these changes, but people can still see her bloody handprint on the wall to whatever hall she makes her new home.

This book was very interesting to me because it told detailed stories about the people that attended these schools and it drew you in to these people’s lives and their deaths. Knowing a little bit of background information on these ghosts’ previous lives makes them seem more real. The people that have experienced paranormal activity in the areas that these people’s lives were taken have given some evidence that supports the idea that these spirits still exist. It was a book that I definitely couldn’t read late at night because it gave detailed descriptions of hauntings and of the fate that these people faced and it was a little bit scary to me.

This book has somewhat convinced me that spirits may exist. I still think that sprits are demons masquerading around as people who have previously lived to deceive us into thinking that the chains of death can be broken. My pastor is a good family friend of ours and he was at my house this past Friday. He has also read this book before when he was doing a study on the supernatural. He explained that, being a pastor, he wanted to explore the supernatural from all points of view so that he can further his knowledge of what happens to us when we die. We both discussed our beliefs on the topic and we agree that these collections of stories about these people probably took place, but we think that their spirits aren’t really them at all, but instead are demons that roam the halls to deceive the students. The students that were still living know exactly what happened to these students whose lives were taken away so they are easily influenced to believe that the paranormal activity that has occurred around them are the spirits of those same people who have died. Which, they may be, but I’m convinced that ghosts are just a tool that Satan uses to throw us off. In the bible it says that Satan and his followers can disguise themselves as an angel of light to trick us, and I think that is exactly what ghosts are: demons who make us believe that they are a “helpful” spirit, or sometimes they may not pretend to be helpful and are just harmful spirits. Not to sound preachy at all, that’s just the way that I see it.

The Hauntings at Sloss Furnace

Brown, Alan. Haunted Places. Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississppi, 2002. 19-25. Print.




Many of us who live in Alabama have grown up with the belief that Sloss Furnace is haunted. Many people have died at Sloss, but there is said to be only two ghosts that take up residence at Sloss. One of the ghosts is the spirit of a young girl who came to Sloss in the 1900's. The girl was unmarried and pregnant and felt like an outcast because to be pregnant out of wedlock back then was a huge deal. She had sneaked in to the gate and walked over to one of the furnaces while the men were pouring iron into the sows. The men were very busy and "they caught sight of her climbing to the top of the ladder, but it was too late. She had jumped off of the latter and plummeted into the molten iron" (23). Shortly after her suicide a ceremony was being held at the furnace where local politicians and company executives were listening to a speech given by a company official, when suddenly a white deer ran by. This deer is believed to be the ghost of the young girl. The other ghost is the spirit of Theophilus Calvin Jowers. Jowers was given a job of removing the old bell of Alice furnace No. 1, dropping the bell into the furnace, and replacing it with a new bell. Jowers was standing too close to the top of the furnace and lost his footing and fell down into the furnace along with the bell. Furnace workers reported feeling a chill in the air when they stood on the bridge at the Alice No. 1 and also reported seeing Jowers ghost in the sweltering heat.

My aunt worked at Sloss Furnance during her freshman and sophomore years of college because she is an art major and wanted to learn a thing or two about cast iron. She's never been one to believe in ghosts, but after working at Sloss for two years she's changed her mind. She said that when she was standing near the machines or near the furnaces that you could hear unexplained noises and feel a cool chill through the air. She and a few of her freinds would stay late and roam around the furnace to see what all this paranormal activity was about. She never said anything about seeing apparations, but she said that she could feel a presence following her. She doesn't believe in ghosts to the extent that some people do, but she definitely thinks that there has to be something to all this ghostly activity that people talk about. After hearing her stories, I think she could just be freaking herself out. She insists that spirits really do exist in Sloss. She's never seen a white deer running through the furnace or seen the apparation of Jowers, but she says that many other people have died at Sloss and that those could be the spirits that she has encountered.

Recorded Poltergeist Activity

Unbelievable poltergeist activity [Video]. (2008). Retrieved on April 14, 2010, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5_RpNgxptQ&feature=related.

This video is about a guy who had been experiencing some paranormal activity in his home. At the ten second mark of the video, he tells us that "I would often return home from work to find the door leading to my attic wide open". Many unexplainable occurrences have happened, so he set up a camera in his living room, hoping to capture the poltergeist on tape. Many strange things occur such, as radio interference, orbs floating around, doors opening and closing, and paper towels on the coffee table ending up on the couch. The man's dogs seem very upset with whatever presence they sense in the house. This footage was recorded during the middle of the day on March 14th 2008.

This video seriously scared the crap out of me! I've seen ghost hunting shows before, but I always believed that people just psyched themselves out and I never understood what the host would be freaking out about. This video seems so real, and the dogs reaction to whatever is going on around them really makes this video that much more believable. I think that this man really does have a spirit living in his home.

Seances and Ectoplasm

Kallen, Stuart A. "Ghostly Communications." The Mystery Library: Ghosts. Farmington Hills, Michigan: Lucent Books, 2004. 36-41. Print.




In one section of The Mystery Library: Ghosts, by Stuart A. Kallen, it talks about spirits innteracting with a medium. Seances are most often conducted with many sitters, or witnesses. These sitters are grouped around a small table while the medium calls forth a spirit. Seances normally take place in a dark room only lit by a single candle. The medium chants to raise the dead, and the sitters either hold hands or place their hands palms down on the table. Using self-hynosis and breathing techniques, the medium begins their spirit communications. Events at a seance can be unpredictable. An example of this occured in 1892 when Charles Hill Tout was allegedly possessed by his father's ghost when it took control of his body during a seance. Sometimes during the course of a seance, ghosts materialize in human form to communicate with the medium or the sitters. They are said to take form of a slimy substance called ectoplasm. Ectoplasm's presence in the human anatomy has not been established biologically, and "as far as is known, ectoplasm exists for no other purpose than to provide construction material for spirits of the dead returning to visit spirit seances" (Kallen 40).

I've seen plenty of movies where the characters perform seances to communicate with deceased family members or friends, but I've never heard of anyone who participates in them in reality. I don't ever plan on participating in a seance, but I would like to find out more information about them. I still can't decide if I believe in ghosts or not because I've researched seances and found that many seances that have been performed have been fake so that the medium can get money from the sitters. But how do you explain ectoplasm during real seances that actually occur? If ectoplasm's presence in our bodies hasn't biologically been established, then how do you explain what it is when it's coming out of a medium's mouth, ears, or eyes? I'm not sure if seances are a way to really connect with spirits, but I think that the author gave enough evidence to convince me that something, whether it has to do with communicating with spirits or whether its black magic, goes on during these practices.

Amityville Horror

The Amityville Horror. Dir. Andrew Douglas. Dimension Films, 2005. Film.



A family, the Lutzes, moves in to a house that was the scene of a grusome murder the year before. Ronald DeFeo Jr., who was the oldest son of the family that lived in the home prior to the Lutzes, brutally murdered his parents and his two brothers and two sisters using a .35 caliber in November of 1974. The Lutzes haven't been in their new house long when they start to see the ghost of Ronald DeFeo's sister, Jodie DeFeo, and theystart to see terrible things such as disfigured bodies, insects gathering in the house, and hearing ghostly voices George Lutz begins to act differently throughout the course of the movie. He becomes a danger to the rest of his family. When a priest is invited to the house to bless the home, he leaves after being swarmed by flies. He warns Kate Lutz by saying, "Mrs. Lutz, get you and your family out of that house. Right now!". Kate tries to get her family out of the house before anything too terrible happens, but the spirits are trying to take over George and make him an endangerment to the ones that he loves.

This movie doesn't really scare me because I think that the Amityville Horror was a total fake. Ronald DeFeo Jr. claimed that he heard ghostly voices telling him to murder his family. What some people do not know is that Ronald DeFeo Jr. was into some hard drugs and had a rough childhood. His actions came from his own desires, not the desires of a "ghost" living in his house. As far as the movie goes, I thought it was a great movie. I hate movies that end with a main character dying, so this movie earned major points for keeping everyone alive, aside from the DeFeo's. As for the "true" story behind the movie, I think it was just a scam for the Lutzes to get money for their "haunted" home.

Poltergeists are bull crap..

Netzley, Patricia D. "Poltergeists." The Mystery Library: Haunted Houses. San Diego, California: Lucent Books, 2000. 30-48. Print.

This week I read about poltergeists in The Mystery Library: Haunted Houses, by Patricia D. Netzley. The word poltergeist is derived from the German words poltern, meaning noisy, and geist, meaning spirit. Basically what these certain spirits do is make loud noises, move objects around, and push, pinch, and shove people. They might can also cause unexplainable fires or strange incidents related to water, such as appearing in a room of puddles with no cause. One of the most common cases of poltergeist activity was the incident of The Amityville Horror. Kathy and George Lutz and their three children moved in to the house in Amityville, New York in 1975. The home had been the site of a murder in 1974. Within a few days the family began to hear banging doors and windows and mysterious noises. The poltergeist started to use physical contact with the members of the Lutz family. The family claimed that they were pushed, pinched, and beaten, and Kathy Lutz reported that she levitated off of a bed on one occasion. The family also reported that green slime had dripped from the ceiling. Only twenty eight days after moving in, the family abandoned the house. The previous occupant of the house, Ronald DeFeo Jr., murdered his parents and four siblings in the house and pleaded insanity during his trial. He told the judge that a ghost had forced him to commit the killings, but the jury believed that DeFeo just wanted his parents insurance money. DeFeo's attorney, William Weber, believed the Lutzes' faked the occurances in the house to make money off of it. The house inspired author Jay Anson to write a book, titled The Amityville Horror, which became a best-seller and also became a movie in 1979.

I don't believe in poltergeists at all. I'm still not even sure if I believe in ghosts, but I do think that if ghosts do exist that they wouldn't try to scare or hurt people for no reason. I think that the Amityville Horror was just a scheme for the Lutzes' to make money off of their home. On page 45 it says that "new owners had moved in to the house, and they were experiencing absolutely no poltergeist activity. Moreover, they felt that the Amityville book and movies were damaging to their quality of life by turning their house into a tourist attraction" (45). If the house really was haunted, then why don't the people living there now undergo any supernatural experiences like the Lutz family did? I really do have mixed beliefs about ghosts. I can't decide if I believe in them or not because some of the research that I collect makes them seem real, but then as I countinue to study the topic I find other research that convinces me otherwise. I'm still so confused..