When Ghosts Speak - Mary Ann Winkowski [21]
Most ghosts will move out of your way if you are headed toward them. More than once, I have seen a startled ghost leap out of the comfortable chair he or she was sitting in to avoid being crushed by a homeowner who, shaken by some piece of news I had given them, abruptly felt the need to sit down.
Earthbound spirits do not walk through walls. They prefer to use doors, just as they did when they were living. I guess ingrained habits are hard to break. Now, the doors don’t have to be open, but ghosts definitely prefer to pass through an actual doorway. One exception to this rule is ghosts who hang out at colleges; they don’t seem to care whether they use a door or scramble in through a second-floor window, especially if there’s a fire escape nearby. When I am clearing college dorm rooms, I always place protective quince seeds—which prevent ghosts from reentering a home—over both the doorway and the windows.
Ghosts Can Interact with the Living to Create Danger and Cause Physical Harm
Ghosts draw energy from the new and full moons. In the days just preceding these lunar events, you may be able to feel an earthbound spirit’s increased power. A ghost may come up behind you and blow on the back of your neck; one might pull at your hair, shake your mattress, or pull off your covers while you’re asleep at night. You may notice doors opening or closing on their own, items falling off shelves, or wire hangers rattling in closets; you could find yourself more frequently “misplacing” household items such as keys, checkbooks, or important papers.
And while some ghosts may be more adept than others at interacting with the physical world around them, the idea—perpetuated by horror movies—that a ghost could kill a person or directly endanger a life through a physical altercation is basically untrue. Despite varying degrees of ability to interact with the physical world, ghosts will not stab, choke, or punch you, or push you down a flight of steps. Although I have infrequently seen physical evidence of an earthbound spirit interacting with a living person, I have yet to see a ghost kill anyone. What I have come across are malicious spirits who may indirectly influence the environment, resulting in harm to the living around them.
I once watched a ghost at our local YMCA purposely contribute to the near drowning of a woman. When I got into the pool for my water aerobics class, I wasn’t surprised to see the ghost of a young man hanging around on the bleachers. Ghosts are pretty common at gyms; most are attached to someone who is working out, but there are always some who’ve wandered in just to take advantage of the energy generated when groups of people gather.
This young guy didn’t look like he’d be attached to any of the other middle-aged women in my class, and normally I would have dismissed him and concentrated on the exercises. But something about this guy unnerved me, and so I kept an eye on him as I began my routine.
At first he just prowled the edges of the pool, sitting in the bleachers for a moment, strolling from the shallow end to the deep. He even climbed up into the lifeguard’s chair and stood there, surveying the whole pool. There was another aerobics class being held in the deep end, and I watched, amazed, as the ghost got out of the chair, went to the edge of the pool, and slipped into the water along with the class. I had never seen a ghost choose to go swimming before, and when he ducked underwater, I scanned that end of the pool, waiting to see where he would surface.
I was still looking for him when there was a huge commotion. One of the women in the deep-water aerobics class suddenly dipped underwater. She resurfaced momentarily, thrashing her arms and screaming. From the way she was flailing around, it was clear that she was somehow in trouble.
The lifeguard and the aerobics instructor immediately jumped into the pool and towed her to the edge. It was then that I noticed a foam flotation device drifting slowly away