The Christmas tree attacked Elder Evertsen.
I kid you not. There he was, Elder Evertsen, kneeling in the living room for his nightly prayers, when suddenly he heard a shuka-shuka kind of rustling and, looking up, he witnessed his Christmas tree, full of tinsel & bulbs, whipping down, trying to assault him. The startled elder jumped back and ran out of the room, calling to his companion. They phoned the zone leaders and the local ward’s bishop. who all arrived at the apartment. After some discussion, the bishop blessed the house, ridding it of whatever was there. After this they never experienced another disturbance.
I would have discounted this as a Mormon missionary legend had it not been that I was in the zone at the time and visited the elders in their apartment the next day. Yes, it’s true… I saw the tree.
Today there was an article in the Living section of CNN.com: What to do when your house is haunted. Its approach was very serious and practical, offering valuable advice on finding the right paranormal investigator (if they ask for money, keep looking) and being prepared to allow 5-6 people to roam all over your home and ask lots of personal questions.
From a very young age I loved ghost stories, and over time have come to accept Stephen King’s theory in his book, Danse Macabre, that sometimes homes or areas become like dry cell batteries and absorb the strong emotional occurrences that once happened there. Even after I joined the Church, I casually held onto this belief. After all, didn’t several of the Saints get riotously sick at an abandoned cabin they took shelter in, afterwhich Joseph learned by revelation that it was a hideout for cutthroats?
I still like spooky stories, but being a priesthood holder kind of takes the direness out of it. Now I watch a haunted house movie and think, silly people, call your Mormon neighbor. Call a bishop. Haven’t you learned from The Exorcist? Watching a priest exorcise a demon is like watching Lucy Ricardo trying to execute one of her hairbrained schemes. Speaking of The Exorcist, my 11-year old daughter is dying to see it. I was 13 when it came out and after I bugged my good Catholic mom long enough, she finally walked me to the box office and told the kid at the counter, “I’m buying my son’s ticket. I’m giving you permission to let him watch it, but I’m not going in there!” Movie freaked. me. out… But it was cool! If I do let my daughter see it, it’ll have to be the AMC Channel’s edited version, and I still have my doubts about that. My wife is dead set against it. She thinks it’s an evil movie. I’m torn because that isn’t the adversary– it’s a Hollywood version of him. He’s got better things to do with his time than possess little girls and make them barf. But introducing that whole scene to my daughter isn’t exactly responsible, either, is it. Another reason why I am considering letting her watch it is I think it will deflate the mystique. Face it, most of the movie was booooring. And it being old and dated, I really believe she’ll watch it, shrug, and never see it again. Case in point: She loved Michael Myers, the killer in Halloween, and got all psyched out over the spooky two-finger theme song. But after she watched the John Carpenter classic, she did just that– she shrugged. “I liked it, but… I don’t need to see it again.” Cool. I’d be surprised if she even liked The Exorcist.
Except for the Joseph Smith incident, you don’t hear a lot of haunted house stories in Mormon lore. As a missionary, I visited a newlywed LDS couple who lived in an old house. There was a vague thump above us and they grinned. “Oh, that’s George,” the wife said. “He’s our ghost.” “You’re kidding.” “No, it’s true. He’s always moving stuff back and forth up there.” “Well, did you tell the bishop?” “Um, no. We want to keep him.” To this day I haven’t decided if it was great faith I was witnessing, or incredible stupidity. Eddie Murphy, in one of his stand-up routines, said he doesn’t get white people and haunted houses. A couple moves into an old house, and that night the toilet’s bleeding. They say, “Hm. That’s peculiar.” If it was a black person he’d be all, “I love my house! I’m never leaving! This place is great!” {GET…OUT!!} “Honey get the kids– we movin’.”
Another story I got to hear firsthand was from a Fundamentalist Christian family who lived in a remote trailer home off a desert highway in Death Valley. The home was given to them as managers of a restaurant outside Lone Pine, and one night when the parents had to go on a trip to get supplies, the kids– age 16 to 5– were left behind. They were very responsible, so it didn’t seem a chancy decision. Around 12:30 am, though, they started hearing scratching outside the trailer and then furious pounding on the walls. The kids all screamed, locked the door and huddled together. After what seemed like several minutes (but was probably around one), the oldest boy angrily burst open the door and screamed, “Who is it!!” The pounding stopped and there was no one anywhere around. The parents later found the kids sitting close together, hugging their bibles. Later they heard from old locals that the desert area was haunted by marauders who used to rob the miners.
I think it would be cool every once in a while to go to a testimony meeting and hear how someone cast a ghost out of their place, or at a neighbor’s. Sorry to say, it just doesn’t happen.
2 responses so far ↓
1 John // Nov 1, 2007 at 5:52 am
Although I’ve never told this in testimony meeting, I do have a personal experience with this type of situation.
We built our home almost 19 years ago on the site of an old pioneer reservoir. Local lore held that sometime in the past, the pond had been the scene of a tragic drowning. The details were different depending on who you talked to, but the comment thread was that it was young boy. Both I and my wife had heard the story growing up and later when we moved back to town. There was nothing particularly remarkable about the story, nothing to distinguish it from similar tales about the area.
Well, to move on with my story, the area was developed about 10 years previously and our lot was one of the few remaining ones. Shortly after we moved in our oldest boy remarked he had seen a face in his room late one night. He didn’t seem particularly upset or fazed by it and we gave it little thought. A couple of months later he said he saw it again. We asked him if he was pulling our leg or trying to scare his brother and sister, but he said no, he had seen a face, but it wasn’t particularly threatening. My wife asked me to bless his room, which I did, and heard no more from him about any strange happenings.
Fast forward eight years. He’s on his mission and is sister moves into his room. The face is pretty well forgotten. One night our daughter runs up stairs sobbing hysterically (sp?). She’s seen the face and won’t go back down there. We think it’s just her imagination (she was a drama queen growing up) and convinced her to go back down. The same thing happened. I blessed the room and the house again, this time after fasting.
To date, no recurrence, and the room is being inhabitated by yet another child.
Was it the face of the drowned boy? I don’t know. Did my children see something unexplainable? Yes. Why them and no one else? I don’t know. But I am convinced they did and I’m also convinced that prayer and priesthood let it go away. The first time I did it just to pacify my wife and had no real belief that there was anything there. The second time, however, there was a palpable feeling in my soul as to approach my blessing with more seriousness and preparation.
I’m a little leery about submitting this as it was real to my and my family, but could be interpreted otherwise, but…….you asked.
2 David // Nov 3, 2007 at 5:55 am
Thank you, John, very much. I can appreciate why you hadn’t shared this in testimony meeting, but you confirmed my suspicion that ghost stories and LDS doctrine can co-exist in our belief set. You never mentioned if you sensed anything yourself over the course of your fasting or blessing. I assumed you didn’t. It does give me an idea, though; to collect more stories like yours. I think it would make very interesting reading.
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