Tranquil, Elegant and Haunted!!Written by Gloria Young
Nestled among East San Jose foothills with only a two-lane road leading to park through mountains, Joseph D. Grant County Park can easily be missed. This park boasts a beautiful house coupled with a few other out-buildings renovated to remind visitors of days of yesteryear. The house has period pieces of furniture, an all wood foyer, hardwood floors in rooms….and residents they never expected. For years park rangers never questioned footsteps, door slams, noises and moving things from corners of their eyes. They merely chalked it up to someone else being in house. When visitors stated that they saw someone or heard something in house, park rangers chalked that up to nothing more than imaginations. The local newspaper contacted park rangers stating they wanted to do an article on house for Halloween. They in turn, contacted our paranormal research group. We made arrangements to all meet at house at a pre-arranged time. It was difficult enough to find park but to do so in dark was even more difficult. You always read about places like this in scary books…the twisting and turning of small, two-lane road, deep darkness of forest, occasional red eyes peering back at you caused by a deer; all qualities for a good horror story. We made our way up to park and then followed path to house. It was a gorgeous house; white, two stories. We brought in simple equipment. The reporter was nice enough. The camera gal was nicer yet. She followed us as well as she could, almost as well as a shadow. It wasn’t until approximately 10 p.m. that we began to notice cold. This was a warm summer evening but there was an obvious drop in temperature. As we wandered through house we noticed that some rooms were definitely very warm and some were very cold. The coldest rooms, we found out later, were rooms that visitors made statements about having activity in and that park rangers had disregarded their comments. This beautiful house has a sordid past. The daughter of Joseph D. Grant killed three men and her sister; two of men on property, one of them somewhere else. She was apparently crazy, had some type of mental illness. As we talked and wandered through house we came across her room. Her name was Edith. We stayed in Edith’s room for quite awhile. We tried to capture EVP. We caught pictures with orbs but there was more to this room. It was one of those rooms where you could feel excitement in air but you didn’t quite know how to put your finger on what was occurring. As nothing did occur, we began to file out of room. The reporter was next to last leaving room and one of our members was last. She had a video camera and was filming. As she approached doorway and as reporter began to step through threshold, our member felt a heavy hand on her left shoulder and stated so. The reporter turned around long enough to find our member being shoved into her, almost knocking them both over. The video camera was still running.
| | The Universal ConnectionWritten by Jesse S. Somer
Do you believe in random coincidence? Or, do you think that there is some destiny involved when things magically 'come together'? I believe in a phenomenon I have been known to call a 'Universal connection'. Yesterday one of these destined occurrences deeply affected mood I was in and took me from feeling pretty low and depressed to feeling a joyous epiphany. Let me tell you about what happened. You see, I don't believe in random, arbitrary coincidences. My understanding is that life is a combined relationship between humanity's freewill, and will of a higher power who I call 'The Great Spirit". I believe in a paradoxical type of destiny that is both preordained by this higher power, but also can be altered by our own decisions that we make every moment of everyday. Opportunities and obstacles are presented and then we are to decide whether or not to take any specific action relating to situation. O.K. So yesterday I wasn't feeling very well; I have a history of depression and anxiety and I perceived a few events that happened to me as being quite negative. Well it just so happens that day before I had been sent an email from my Tai Chi instructor that had some links that related to depression, as they know of my problem. I looked at one site that was about some new form of neurotechnology where listening to a certain type of C.D. is supposed to send one's mind into a deep state of meditation. I am admittedly skeptical about this sort of thing as of course money is always supposed to exchange hands. The good thing about this particular site is that they offer a free sample C.D. of which I ordered. Anyhow, I started to peruse over information on this site and I came across some quotes by famous people. One that struck me was by a Rabbi Hillel and as my good friend at work is very interested in Jewish culture and religion, I cut and pasted it into Messenger for him to read. As I was feeling down, I left work early and went home to read some more of a book that I've really been enjoying lately. It's called 'Sacred Journey of Peaceful Warrior' and is written by Dan Millman. It's sequel to a book I really loved entitled, 'Way of Peaceful Warrior'. After reading for a chapter or two I came up to Chapter 17: 'Courage of Outcast'. The chapter began with these words: If I am not for myself, Who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, What am I? And if not now, when? (Hillel, Sayings of Fathers)
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