The
Disappearing Haunted House of a Local Famous
New Orleans Psychic
"THE
GATEWAY TO ANOTHER WORLD"
Name Withheld by Request
This story, though it occurred some
years ago, is nonetheless true.
In the burgeoning early days of the
"Age of Aquarius" it seemed
that everyone was tuning in and turning
on to the occult and paranormal. Unlikely
advocates were found and unlikely devotees,
along with some who were at the time,
shall we say, less than willing ...
A by-product of the new relaxed mentality
and interest was that gifted individuals,
those who had psychic gifts of minimum
to maximum proportions, suddenly felt
comfortable talking about or even to
some extent advertising themselves.
They would make their services available
through the bookstore and lecture circuit
and were enjoying the results of the
new "fad."
One New Orleans woman was never a less
likely devotee of the paranormal and
occult, or so it seemed. A devoted Catholic
who had gone to church and prayed faithfully
all her life, nonetheless now fostered
a new interest in the "unknown."
The woman, whom we will call "Sadie"
for the purposes of this story, threw
herself into the paranormal with both
feet and soon was attending lectures
and sharing her interest with newfound
friends.
No one who has any interest in the occult
and paranormal can long resist the desire
to know the future, to have a psychic
reading of their very own and through
various channels Sadie was led to a
woman whose talents and skill for reaching
the "other side" had already
become famous. It was easy to get appointments
and the psychic was always available
during the day, but not in the evening
when she performed seances and trance
sessions.
Sadie set her appointment and ticked
off the days until it arrived. In that
time she had narrowed down a few questions
to ask that interested her and thought
about what part of the future she was
most interested in. To balance her seemingly
impractical side, Sadie had a predictability
that was legendary among her family.
Thus when she told her 14 year old
daughter that she would be picking her
up early from school that day it was
a surprise and interested the girl very
much. However one explains a visit to
a psychic to a 14 year old, Sadie did
this while they were en route to the
psychic's house.
The home was located in the Lakeview
area of New Orleans; as the teenage
girl discovered it was apparently within
eyeshot of a famous local Catholic school
that was a heated rival of the teen's
own school. The house was a typically
unassuming extra-urban type of the Baby
Boomer era: blonde brick and manicured
lawn; three or four bedrooms; parquet
floors and modern appliances. Oh, and
a huge, bare, oval of a dining room
table in the middle of the massive living
/ dining room that the owner used for
seances...
Sadie's daughter was reluctant to go
inside the house. It immediately felt
uncomfortable to her. But her mother
insisted, apparently thinking her more
in harm's way languishing in the car
as the fall afternoon wore on than inside
a house where spirits came and went
freely. The daughter resigned herself
to accompany her mother inside.
The "psychic lady" was quite
normal looking, a typical New Orleans
housewife with short dark hair and brown
eyes; nothing spectacular but acceptably
attractive. She was very nice and welcomed
Sadie and her daughter eagerly into
the front door. Once inside, she immediately
took Sadie by the arm and led her from
the foyer into the massive living room
/ dining room combination. Sadie's daughter,
for the moment forgotten, stood rooted
to the parquet floor of the entrance
foyer gaping at the rooms around her.
It seemed that every nook, every cranny
was filled with something old. This
was not the "something old"
one might give a new bride; these were
OLD things, antiques, and it was immediately
apparent that there was a LOT of character
in the room.
The teen walked in step behind her mom
until the psychic turned and realized
she was there. "Oh, honey,"
she said in a drawl that only New Orleanians
understand, "you're gonna have
to wait up front for mom, OK?"
A sinking feeling as the door to the
anteroom off the psychic's very ordinary
kitchen slammed in her face. The daughter
made her way back to the living room
and at first found a place to sit that
was near the dining room table. Sadie
had told her all about the seances that
the lady conducted there. The teenage
girl didn't know how she actually felt
about sitting so near what amounted
to an oversized Ouija board so she moved
over to an uncomfortable Louis XVI settee
that stood nearby.
Soon, however, this spot came to feel
just as uncomfortable, or, as she thought
at the time, "exposed," so
the girl moved yet again, finally settling
in a comforting (at least by appearances)
English wing chair directly beside the
front door. As soon as she sat down,
however, there came the sound of a huge
CRASH from the rear room into which
her mother had disappeared with the
psychic.
The girl moved to get up, wanting to
see what the matter was, but suddenly
she realized she would not move even
if she wanted to: there came a sound
to her ears that fixed her in place
in complete panic, almost unable to
move. It sounded like a rush of air
at first, exactly as an air conditioning
vent will sound when the central unit
kicks on -- only there was no central
air conditioning in this house and apparently
not even a window unit anywhere nearby.
The sound of rushing air seemed to emanate
first from the back of the house, then
grew in intensity until it filled all
the room around her. Every object in
the room seemed to be keenly aware of
her presence now and everything, even
the paintings on the walls and the rare
books on the antique tables all around,
seemed to perk up and join in the rushing
sound until it became a hissing like
a huge cat sneaking up unseen, about
to lunge.
As the sound grew, the young girl drew
herself up into the scant comfort of
the old wing chair, seemingly the only
thing in the room that was not whispering
to itself, to its neighbors or to her.
She drew her knees up against her chest
and covered them with the folds of her
Catholic girls' school skirt, and listened
and watched as the unseen tornado swirled
around the room. Faintly there came
the sounds of voices and at this the
teenager began to come unhinged. She
looked over her shoulder at the front
door, one of those Florida style affairs
with the glass slats that open by way
of a rolling handle to one side: the
deadbolts on the door looked impossible
to open.
The girl was now completely frightened
and thought she was about to scream
if the noise did not stop when suddenly
there came a loud "CLANG"
followed by a scrape and a loud "SLAP."
The room fell completely silent, but
she had already jumped to her feet and
spun round to face the sound when she
saw the shadow of the postman pass in
the front window. She looked at the
floor in front of the door and saw a
few pieces of mail laying there. Suddenly
she was aware of street sounds outside
and the sound of birds in the huge cedar
trees on the lawn.
With a sigh of relief the girl sank
into the chair again. But she was still
wary, and soon the silence became more
watchful and more deafening than the
hissing tornado of moments before.
Finally thinking she would lose her
mind, the girl was relieved to hear
the door to the back room open and to
see her mother and the psychic walking
toward the front of the house. Not surprisingly
when the psychic unbolted the front
door, Sadie's daughter was the first
out into the open air. The psychic looked
at her a little puzzled and then nodded
almost knowingly. The daughter was already
leaning on the car door, anxious to
get inside.
With some polite "goodbyes"
Sadie finally got into the car and began
to drive away.
"Mom," asked the teen, "what
was that banging noise I heard after
you went in the back?"
Sadie, reluctantly, admitted that the
noise had come from the back room and
related that as soon as she had sat
down in the darkened room and the psychic
had set a match to two candles on a
coffee table, there was a banging on
the window, "from the outside."
It was so intense it shook down a porcelain
figure that the psychic had on the windowsill.
Not only this, but Sadie said she felt
a bone chilling cold pass her, as if
on its way out of the room, as soon
as the window was struck.
Sadie's daughter didn't tell her mom
about the experience she had waiting
on the edge of the unknown that day.
If Sadie herself ever went back to visit
that psychic, she never shared any news
about it with her daughter.
But the young girl never forgot, and
a couple of years later when she was
old enough to legally drive, she and
the very bravest of her girlfriends
would go "cruising" in the
Lakeview area and try as she might,
Sadie's daughter never, EVER could find
that house again, though she knew exactly
what street it was on and where it stood
in relation to the rival Catholic school
nearby. Years of trying turned up nothing,
nothing that is except an empty lot
where the house ought to have been ....
maybe she just wasn't meant to find
it again?
Soon, however, Sadie's daughter would
have her own and worse experiences with
poltergeists and hauntings in her own
suburban New Orleans home, and these
experiences would sometimes diminish
but never eclipse this first brush with
the unknown in the house that "wasn't
there."
NOTE: This is a true story. It is neither
Urban Legend nor local myth, but actually
happened to the author. Names have been
changed to protect the privacy of the
contributor, but the veracity of the
events is without question.
The photographs
and articles in this section
are copyrighted material and
cannot be used, copied or inserted
in another website without the
written permission of Haunted
America Tours under penalty
of law!
While the
copyright holders of the pictures
and articles on this website
have given permission to use
their photographs; some could
not be located or misrepresented
themselves as such.
If you are
the owner of any picture or
article on this website and
wish proper credit to be given
to you please contact Haunted
America Tours directly, or,
if you prefer that the image
or article not be used, it will
be immediately removed as per
your request!
WARNING
- if you received email that says its from "hauntedamericatours.com",
and has attachments, do not open them. They are not from Haunted
AmericaTours.com. hauntedamericatours.com never emails attachments
to anyone.
YOU SHOULD NEVER - EVER - OPEN EMAIL ATTACHMENTS!
Haunted America Tours does not send spam,
and will not sell your email address to anyone. Haunted America
Tours does not support or endorse any myspace.com pages including
spoof myspace pages claiming to be Haunted America Tours. If you
receive a friends request or any other contact regarding Haunted
America Tours on Myspace please disregard as we DO NOT maintain
any presence on myspace or any other Internet blogging sites.
