CELEBRATING TEN YEARS
- THE BEGINNING -
Life has a funny way of turning you into the one thing you never thought you'd be. An author? That thought never crossed my mind. Standing in front of a room with dozens of eyes on me while giving a talk? Eleven years ago, I would have broken out in a cold sweat because of that thought. But something happened along the way to turn my life into something I would have never dreamt of.
It was during our second investigation at Houghton Mansion in North Adams, Massachusetts that the thought of writing a book was put into my mind. Oddly, it was there when I woke up from a very light sleep in the noisy and haunted mansion. I had the sudden urge to tell the story of the lives that used to call that mansion their home. When I told my wife, she was puzzled at my declaration - but more importantly, supported this idea and put up with my many late nights and pages of notes scattered throughout our home. It was also ten years ago that the first of four books that I wrote, was published, another milestone this year to reflect upon.
During our group's third - and supposedly final - investigation of Houghton Mansion, a choking sensation and then an unexpected thunderstorm at five in the morning made me give up the thought of sleeping. Wait! Did I say 'choking'? Sadly, yes. I had dug up the history of the family's chauffeur - a past he took great pains to hide. You would think that getting choked would make me leery to investigate further. But I figured that the energy from the thunderstorm would have energized the atmosphere and would allow for truly amazing paranormal experiences on the third floor of the mansion. The third floor was typically the most heavy and intense of all of the areas of the building. I walked up the stairs alone and entered into the locker room in the center of the third floor. I sat down on the floor with just a digital voice recorder and a camera.
As the rain intensified and the frequency of lightning increased, I had heard the sound of water dripping from the ceiling onto the floor. Turning on my flashlight, I saw many drips of water falling to the floor. To me it was as if the mansion lured me to the third floor to witness the water falling like tear drops begging for help. As I sat on the floor, I had thought of a historic building in my own hometown that was demolished to make way for a modern building housing a recreation center for a condominium complex. It was months prior that I wished to document any paranormal activity in that building. Many people were trying to save that important piece of history, but the battle was lost, and history was erased.
Prior to 2014, I had been helping many people who had issues with paranormal entities in their homes. I would answer between fifty and one hundred emails each week, offering guidance, education and if they were close enough - an investigation and cleansing of their space. Each and every month, the numbers of emails exploded. I tried my best to get to everyone, but it had been taking a toll on my own health. I'm someone who puts others before myself, so I was not sleeping and constantly worrying about people I had just met.
As I sat on the floor watching the rain leak through the ceiling, I had another wild thought. I knew that there were many groups that did what we did, but yet, there were not many groups whose mission was to help the historic structures that dot our landscape. The mansion once again motivated me to make a major change in my life. So, as I sat on the floor, the new business model came to me and I was looking forward to a change. As soon as my wife woke up, I relayed this wild idea to her - and she immediately jumped on board.
Our goal was to keep the entire team together for this new chapter of our lives, but sadly, life is not perfect, and our paranormal investigation group parted ways. Within a few short weeks, I unpublished our website that took years to build. It was a bittersweet moment - I felt free and mourned at the same time.
In May 2014, our new "business model" was complete, my first book was about to be published and a new website was built. In June 2014, we approached our friends at Houghton Mansion and presented our vision to help their building. "A Spirited Evening at Houghton Mansion" was born. The great folks there were very supportive of us in this venture and allowed us to grow as hosts to group paranormal events. Sadly, Houghton Mansion was sold and at this writing there are no public events in the building. We have since partnered with Ventfort Hall Mansion and Gilded Age Musuem in Lenox, MA; Fort Adams in Newport, R.I.; and Shanley Hotel in Napanoch, N.Y. And we are currently working on expanding our roster to provide our guests more opportunities to investigate with spirits.
Our team has grown again as a second generation of our family has been on many of our adventures. I quite often joke that our children are 'grizzled veterans', and there is truth in that statement as they have experienced some truly remarkable experiences since they were small. They are now teenagers - proving that time does fly and the cliche of 'they grow up so fast' is one hundred percent accurate.
So, that is our origin story as hosts of group paranormal investigations. One day, I'll share my origin story of why I became a paranormal investigator many, many, many years ago (it pains me to think about that number).
Throughout this year, we'll take a look back at our first ten years and share memories in this newsletter.
