Ghosts Among Us - James Van Praagh [73]
I looked at Hanna and didn’t get much from her, except for a name.
“Does the name Annabelle mean anything to you?”
“No,” she replied.
Then I got a hit on only one other thing. “Does canning tomatoes ring a bell?”
“All I know,” Hanna said, “was that my grandmother lived on a farm in Iowa, and I used to hear stories about her canning all types of things. Tomatoes were her specialty.”
It seemed so far-fetched, but that was all I could get. I did not feel that the noises were associated with the grandmother at all.
“I want you both to keep a journal and to make it as specific as possible, accounting for everything that happens.”
Then I helped them to psychically clean out their house, although in all sincerity, I did not feel any bad energy except in that one bedroom. I thought it couldn’t hurt, and psychologically, clearing the house might ease their fears.
About four months later, Mike called. “It’s a boy. We named him Walter after my dad.”
Mike talked about the baby, but I could tell something wasn’t right.
“Any more problems in the house?”
Mike hesitated. “No, well, not really. To tell you the truth, we are counting our blessings.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, when we brought Walter home, the noises started again and got worse. The furniture in the baby’s room would move around in really weird formations. At one point we thought we heard a voice call out ‘Anna.’ Hanna and I were scared, and we decided to keep Walter with us in our room. Three days after we brought Walter home, there was a terrible thunderstorm, and the wind rattled the house. At one o’clock in the morning, we heard this terrible crashing sound. Hanna and I ran into Walter’s room and were stunned at what we saw. A tree had fallen through the roof right onto Walter’s crib. If Walter had been there, he would have been crushed to death.”
Needless to say, Mike’s story came as a complete shock to me. It was like hearing something on the nightly news.
Mike continued. “This is where it gets even freakier.”
I remember sitting down to listen to the rest of what he had to say.
“You know the message you gave us about Hanna’s grandmother?”
“Yes. About canning tomatoes. I remember.”
“Hanna asked her mother about the name Annabelle. Her mother told her that Annabelle was the name of her older sister who had died of crib death. Hanna’s grandmother blamed herself for the baby’s death and was never able to forgive herself for it. We think it must have been Hanna’s grandmother making sure Walter was protected. She was trying to warn us with the noises and the nightmares.”
“No, I don’t think it was Hanna’s grandmother. I think it was the baby, Annabelle herself, who wanted to protect little Walter.”
“Come to think of it,” Mike replied, “last night Hanna had a dream of a little girl playing in a tree house, and she said the girl was all smiles.”
This ghost story ends on a positive note because little Annabelle was motivated to protect the new baby. However, I have had hundreds of letters from people who have had very different and rather unhappy outcomes with poltergeists that slam doors, move furniture, and screech and holler. It takes an enormous amount of energy for earthbound ghosts to manifest in such chilling ways. If this kind of phenomenon occurs in your home, I would suggest that you see a well-respected person in the paranormal field who deals with the grounding and centering of energy.
However, before you decide that a poltergeist is around, make sure that the activity is not originating from a person with a lot of psychokinetic energy. If this type of activity does originate from a living person rather than a ghost, the person needs to learn techniques to control the outbursts and direct the energy in a positive way. The best advice I can give is to make sure