Are There Ghosts at Spirit House?
By Madis Senner
When I talk to people about Spirit House in Georgetown, NY the talk always comes down to ghosts. It is a haunted place, full of spirits, ghosts and the like? The History channel’s film crew came to Spirit House to search for the Spirit of Mae West, a well known Spiritualist, a few years back.
No doubt something is afoot at Spirit House. Many of the pictures posted on the Spirit House Society Pictures Blog have orbs in them. But instead of seeing ghosts I see a very spiritual place, a divine place that has a long history of being a sacred site, a Mecca for pilgrims. Had Timothy Brown constructed a more traditional place of worship such as a church, instead of talking about ghosts we would be talking about sightings of angels, the Virgin Mary and discarded crutches would be littering the grounds. Spirit House is truly a divine place.
Spirited History
Timothy Brown built Spirit House in the later half of the nineteenth century with the intention of creating a Spiritualist Mecca when the Spiritualist movement was sweeping across America. Brown testified on how he was guided by Spirits in constructing the house. Before he could hammer in a misplaced nail he would be corrected. He even designed the house to be conducive for meeting Spirits. There were no corners in the house because it was believed that they would impede the movement of Spirits. Closets were made to be the exclusive domain of Spirits. The kitchen was a windowless room where Spirits would be called. Once opened, Spirit House became the domain of mediums.
No doubt all of this focus on connecting with Spirits influences a space. Just as our thoughts (thought forms) attach to us so do they attach to a place. I call such thoughts geographic samskaras, after the Hindu term samskara, the word that describes the thoughts that attach to us. The entire world is covered with geographic samskaras. The geographic samskaras of a place look to influence you by having you think or do whatever has gone on there before. For Spirit House this means that thought of connecting with Spirit, or the divine, is dominant.
The Veil is Thin
The energies, consciousness and other essences of Mother Earth are powerful at Spirit House. It is the top place in my listing of sacred sites listed in Mother Earth Prayers website. It has what I call fields of consciousness (part of Mother Earth’s soul) and is one of the few places where 12 of them are placed upon each other. I have consistently found that such fields of consciousness are places where great people lived or great events happened. From leaders of the women’s movement (Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Matilda Josyln Gage…) to the leaders of the Underground Railroad (Harriet Tubman, Fredrick Douglas, Gerritt Smith…) to people like Clara Barton (Red Cross) all lived on, or close to such fields.
What also contributes to the divine nature of Spirit House is the thoughts, intentions of others that came there before. If they are loving, caring and giving then Mother Earth begins to respond and we begin to co-create with her. One of the first joint efforts is the creation of a vortex that begins to draw an increased amount of energy, essences or consciousness to a particular spot. A vortex is one of the things that I look for when trying to determine whether a site was a sacred site because it would indicate that prayer, ceremony or meditation occurred there. Spirit House has many vortices.
Our co-creating with Mother Earth does not end with the creation of vortices. The veil to other worlds beyond our physical senses begins to thin. This is the spiritual world that coexists with the material but is much finer in nature. The ability to connect and communicate with realities beyond the physical world is greatly enhanced as the veil thins.
This thinning of the veil could be one of the reasons why Brown was drawn to build Spirit House where he did. It could also be that Brown was swept up by the desire to communicate with the divine because there was such a strong lingering presence there to do so. One gets a palpable sense on the grounds around Spirit House that is has long history of being a place or prayer, ceremony and crying for a vision going back millennia.
Seek and Yee Shall Find
The question remains, are there ghosts at Spirit House? There is possibility to see, or to find whatever you seek there. The divine nature of the place and the meditations and prayers of all that have come before have created an inviting and tantalizing environment. This provides a host of opportunities.
Don’t sell yourself short and settle for ghosts or apparitions, when much more is possible. You can dream of building a Mecca for people to connect with Spirit as Brown did. Or you can dream of freedom like the leaders of the Women’s Movement and the Underground Railroad did.
All is possible in the heart of Mother Earth’s soul and Spirit House is one of her very special places within it.