…I decide that I am ready to figure out who this spirit really is.  I wait until most everyone has left the basement except the kitchen staff, then open the door and step into the storage room.  I try to make contact but it seems as if he is slumbering.  I can sense that he is weakest in the morning.  I honestly don’t mind since I don’t want him to get any bright ideas about antagonizing me. 

As I stand there a few minutes longer, I feel him starting to wake up.  I ask who he is, and I hear the name “Edward”, and then just a few seconds later, “Rose”.  The name Edward comes across very strong but “Rose” is a little bit weaker.  I wonder if it is because I am not hearing it right or because he used all his energy communicating the name “Edward” to me. 

I ask him to give me a sign so that I will know that he is really there and that I am hearing him correctly.  I hear a small creak in the room, but to be honest, I’m not sure if this is him or not.   I decide to come back later when he might be a little more active.

I’m back down in the basement again for lunch.  I wait until only a few people are left and sneak back into the storage room again.  I close the door behind me. 

My eyes search the room, scanning the walls, the floor, and the ceiling for anything that is a little unusual or out of place.  I notice an impression on one of the stones in the wall that looks like several large ears of corn, and think that perhaps the image has some kind of significance, but other than that, everything looks ordinary.

Just to be on the safe side, I mentally surround myself in the white-light of God then say an “our father”.  Then, I call out his name into the silence, and I feel his presence grow stronger.  I can sense that he has been waiting for me.  The temperature in the room is suddenly cool.  Something is about to happen. 

I am standing in the center of the room facing the tiny diamond-shaped window when I see (and feel) an ethereal form race past me towards the door.  A corporeal materialization.   This gets my attention.

I pivot around to face the door.  The cord for the light switch is swaying gently. That’s when it hits me that his energy is the most concentrated when he is “standing” right by the door.   I’d been looking in the wrong direction for my sign. 

I feel an urge (almost a compulsion) to touch the floor.  I’m still a little freaked out by it all, and I don’t want to actually *sit* on the floor, so instead I bend my knees a little and reach down to brush the floor with my hands.  I feel a wave of cool move across my hands and the floor, as if an energy is moving, and that’s when I see*it*…a pink silk rose!  I gasp aloud.

The rose appears to have come off one of the many silk floral arrangements that decorate the rooms at camp.  Except, it was NOT there when I came in.  Also, there are no floral arrangements in that room, at least not that I can see.  I pick the rose up and take it with me.

On the way upstairs, I inconspicuously examine every floral arrangement in the basement for a resemblance to this pink rose.  There are none that even remotely come close, let alone match.  I take the rose back to my cabin and put it in the table.  I’m gasping for the second time today when I notice that the rose EXACTLY matches the pink roses printed on the plastic tablecloth that covers my reading table. Things just keep getting stranger and stranger.

By this time, I am fully out of my denial.  It is one thing to rationalize away creaking floors, moving doors, and dropping temperatures.  It is quite another to try to rationally explain the sudden materialization of a solid object.

*

            That night there is circle again led by my friend Rev. Charles Cox.  Charles is an old-fashioned medium trained in the traditional workings of Spiritualism.  He also happens to have a great sense of humor, and is the only person I know who can make jokes about communicating with the dead sound funny.  So I sign up for his circle hoping to have a light-hearted evening away from basement visitations and late night work.  But then about twenty minutes before circle starts, I hear that Charles has decided to have it in the basement.  Oh boy, here we go again. 

While people are streaming into the circle, I go down into the storage room to have a little chat with Edward.  I tell him that even though it is not my circle, I would appreciate it if he doesn’t scare the heebie-jeebies out of all of us.  He tells me that it is too bright in the storage room and that he wishes me to turn off the light while I am talking to him.  I tell him that he is out of his mind and that there is no way I am talking to him in the dark.  Then I leave the room, careful to close the door, and take my seat in the circle.

Charles comes into the room and announces that we are going to have an old-fashioned séance in the dark.  As in, with all the lights off. (!)   I look at him with a slight terror creeping over my body and say, “You’re kidding, right?”.  The look he gives me back tells me he is most definitely NOT kidding.  Once again, I feel like I am being set up by Fate, or at least by Edward, who just told me that he wanted to talk to me in the dark.  Well, it looks like he is going to get his wish.

Charles turns off the light then takes his chair next to me in the circle.  He suggests that we all hold hands. I grip his hand and the hand of Phyllis, my friend sitting on the other side of me, with an iron clench.  I am not letting go for anything.  I don’t know why but I am still a little afraid of Edward.  Maybe because I can’t forget the way he leered at me the first time I met him.  Maybe also because I still don’t understand what he wants from me or us.

Charles barely finishes leading us in a few “our fathers” before many of us begin noticing orbs of light, swirls of energy, and spirits in the room.  I am sitting with my back to the storage room, so I don’t expect to actually see Edward, however I do feel his presence strongly from the very beginning of the circle.  I know it is just a matter of time before Edward reaches Charles (or someone else in the circle) with a message for me.

I don’t have to wait long.  Within the first few minutes, Charles is contacted by Edward.  The first thing Charles says to me about him is, “Cynthia, did you flip Edward off when you first met him?”  I am simultaneously embarrassed and impressed.  I laugh out loud and say, “No, but I may have said something to the extent of ‘I am getting the f---- out of here.”  (Hey…what would you say if you suddenly felt a creepy spirit leering at your bottom?)

Charles goes on to say that Edward left me the spirit-rose to show me that he is sorry for his inappropriate behavior.  He says that Edward definitely “likes the ladies” but other than that, he is perfectly harmless.  Others in the group who have not yet heard about Edward are wondering what is going on, so I quickly fill them in on my first unsavory meeting with Edward in the storage room and the subsequent pink silk rose that he left me.

I tell them that I heard him say his name was “Edward Rose”, but that I am not one hundred percent sure about the “Rose” part, as it did not come through as clearly.  Ladonna, a powerful older woman who has been affiliated with the church for longer than I have been alive, speaks up and says, “The last name is ‘Roe’.  He is a relative of a medium who used to come up here a long, long time ago.  We called her Mrs. Mother Roe.  She was a good friend of my grandmother’s.”

Wow.  I’ve got Goosebumps on my arms right now. 

Ladonna goes on to say, “That spirit has been here for at least 70 years.  It is time for him to go on.  We need to help him move to the light”.

Now, this is the point in the story where you are probably expecting some incredible, heart-warming tale about how we helped Edward release his earthly burdens and move on to our Mother-Father in heaven.  Except, it didn’t happen that way.

 Edward does not want to go.  He is perfectly happy haunting the storage room in the basement at Sunset Spiritualist Church.  He “likes the ladies” as Charles said (he was also flirting with my friend Phyllis in the circle).  Occasionally, he leers a little bit too suggestively, although I doubt that he is going to be doing too much of that anymore after the lectures on morality & appropriate social conduct that I gave him (leave it to a Capricorn to lecture a ghost on etiquette.)

Edward reached out to me simply because he was lonely.  He wanted to know why there aren’t many circles in the basement any more, as he really enjoys interacting with those of us in the flesh.  I told him about how they have moved most of the séances to the official “séance room” building outside.  Now, he knows where to go if he wants to get in on a circle, although it is my guess that he will keep luring unsuspecting mediums down to the basement to hold séances (ha).


I called back up at the camp earlier this week to confirm some of my facts for this story.  Last I heard there are people at the camp still trying to get Edward to move on.  These are mediums far more older & experienced than me.  If any one has a chance, it is them.  I wish them luck.  I know they will need it when dealing with a spirit as mischievous & determined as Edward.

*

Hope you enjoyed this story.  It just goes to show that there is soooooo much more to “reality” than what we see with our physical eyes.

Many Blessings,

Cynthia Killion, Spiritual Guide

P.S.  If you would like to visit the place where I met Edward, then go to www.sunsetcamp.org.  There are two more circles left in this camp season (Friday, June 22 and Saturday June 23) plus they have services at the church every Sunday.