I Sensed a Foul Spirit...Wickedness in Habitation

I was reading an old friend's blog today and she was talking about how empty houses seemed souless. I don't disagree with this generally, but I have been in empty houses that were anything but souless. I have sensed evil in empty houses - maybe even evil spirits. I have also sensed evil in houses I have lived in - mostly as a child.  My sense for that sort of thing was much sharper back then.

I have also been in one cemetery that seemed to have an evil spirit. I have been in many cemeteries in the day and in the night and sensed nothing out of place, but this one particular cemetery on the northwest side of Des Moines had something going on the night I was there. There was an evil presence that made the hair stand up on the back of my neck and I had quite a lot of hair in 1978. I was out walking with a different friend that night. We entered the cemetery in the course of the walk. It was small, gated and fenced with wrought iron. Not a lot of headstones, but many were ornate and the graves were very old - some to the mid 19th century. I felt a presence that seemed both evil and happy at the same time. It would stay behind me. I could almost hear it's foot steps. I looked at my walking companion and she seemed to be completely insensitive to it. I wanted to leave immediately, but she was distracted by the old stones. When we finally left and got passed the end of the wrought iron, the oppressive, mocking spirit departed. I felt the relief sweep over me like a storm had passed. It was a kind of 'scared' that I had not experienced since I was a child. I asked my friend if she felt anything in that cemetery and she laughed at me. She felt nothing.

Are you familiar with night terrors where you are asleep, maybe having a bad dream and you try to scream, but you can't and then suddenly you sit up in bed wide awake and maybe sweaty or breathing heavily? It's that kind of scared.

Anyhow, I commented on the blog post that I thought some empty houses were anything but souless and I also mentioned that I thought there were evil trees. I cannot explain it, but there are some trees, particularly in the oak family, that seem to have some vile spiritual component. I do not know how to explain it. Perhaps it comes from their appearance, but there are some trees that just seem evil to me. There is an oak across the road from where I currently live that kind of creeps me out. I do not have a picture of it, but I do have a couple of examples of what I mean below.

This tree is vile. It is monstrous and if it were in my yard, it would strike fear in my heart. It is a genuinely creepy tree. It is a sick and twisted oak tree. Can you see how nothing grows around it? It's sucking the life right out of it's environment.

Yes, I know it's very old and probably rare because of it, but I would bet money that it's rotten inside and probably even gives off an odor. I am reminded of the tree in the Old Forest outside the border of the Shire where Tom Bombadil lived with Goldberry. Do you remember the tree that captured Merry and Pippin and was gradually enclosing them in its trunk? That was Old Man Willow. Tom had to talk the tree into giving them up.

Trees can be scary things as well as beautiful...

Evil resides in weird places. Old trees. Empty houses. Cemeterys. Even certain people. You can say this is all in my head if you like, but I'm telling you I can sense these things. It ain't just my imagination.

Just let me say one more thing. I do not think this evil is ghost activity. I believe it to be demonic. There is a reason the old Druids worshiped trees...the really old ones have evil spirits in them.

All right, I will stop now. I'm sure this will be used some day to commit me to a nursing home or something. I think I'm about ready.