I consider the
paranormal to be normal. Not that I wouldn’t be scared if my bed suddenly took
off across the room or if the windows slammed up and down, but I would ask
myself if I wasn’t causing all the ruckus with my angst or pent-up emotion,
much like a teenaged telekinetic. Of course, the first thing I would do is
pray.
I believe that our
ancestors took the paranormal on faith, without proof. For the most part, in
modern times, we refuse to take the paranormal seriously because we don’t
understand it. That’s the key. One day we will have all the scientific proof we
need. But, for now, the paranormal is truly “para” – outside the normal.
I used the
paranormal in Dreamwater as a device
to help my characters move ahead – not as a deus ex machina – God coming down
from on high to intervene – but as a normal, every day tool used by
extraordinary people who know how to use it.
I hardly know
where to begin when talking about Dreamwater.
The paranormal abounds! That’s just the way it is.
In Dreamwater, two psychics warn New Low
that he must return to Marblehead because his mother is in danger of being
arrested as a witch. Jordana, a young prostitute, Ned’s friend and consort,
tells him that “the Devil is in Marblehead” and Jordana’s mother, an Oracle,
gives Ned instructions on how to rescue his mother, “Hide her in the sacred
temples, the ones that are built of heavy stones, stones that are aligned with
the rising sun, along the path of the snakes.”
Marblehead is
laced with tunnels, or so the legend goes – called the snakes in Dreamwater. Several shops and houses in
Marblehead are joined by tunnels that also lead to the sea. These tunnels were probably
once used by smugglers, and later, most likely used again by escaped slaves in
the Underground Railroad. However, like most secrets, the use, even the
existence, of the tunnels is very hard to prove as little evidence survives. In Dreamwater, the snakes have paranormal powers.
Marblehead is
built on granite. While researching Dreamwater,
I wanted to find a book about phenomenon associated with ancient sites such as
the Witch’s Cave in Nahant where Ned hides his mother. I found only one – Paul
Devereux’s Places of Power, Secret
Energies at Ancient Sites: A Guide to Observed or Measured Phenomena.
Burial Hill, Marblehead, MA
It was Devereux
who had some success in measuring the sounds granite makes when he used
ultra-sound and was rewarded with what I like to call granite’s “heart beat.” I
gave the Witch’s Cave a sunrise alignment (a real cave I discovered in Robert
Ellis Cahill’s New England’s Ancient
Mysteries) as well as a drumming beat that only Molly can hear. In real
life, I can tell you that one is transformed in Marblehead. Marblehead is
enchanted. Perhaps the living granite has something to do with its powerful
force. However, most places, when left natural, have that very power. Earth is
beautiful and powerful. If only we didn’t pave over Nature or build malls where
marshes should be, we would still be experiencing this force more directly.
In Dreamwater, Molly is an innocent young
girl who is attracted to Ned’s dangerous character. When Molly is accused of
witchcraft, Jordana has a dream in which the sun and blue sky are hidden away
in a dark hole. She knows Ned’s true love has been arrested and thrown into a
cell. Reluctantly, she sends Ned a dream. He wakes in terror as he witnesses
the black hanging sack being thrown over Molly’s fair head.
As someone who is
sensitive and just a little bit psychic, the idea of sending someone a dream in
order to communicate or the idea that granite has a heart beat, is not so
far-fetched. These are matters of course. Modern psychics live their lives every
day using psychic tools the same way they would pick up a knife to cut a
vegetable or turn on the faucet for water.
I know how normal
the paranormal can be. I know psychics have dreams of great consequence, and
true psychics can send information to others, psychic or not, through forms of
energy like dreams, visions, sometimes even TV or the internet.
An interesting
example of this kind of communication happened a few years ago when I was doing
research for When Two Women Die. I
came across the website (no longer available) of the psychic, Lynne Olson, who
said as she watched TV, in this case, the show Ghost Adventures, she had spoken
to one of the spirits in a particularly evil Las Vegas house. She asked why he
was still there, and the ghost answered, “There’s no heaven for the likes of
me. This is a pretty good deal for me. Me and this house clicked.” Later, lead
ghost hunter, Zac Bagans remarked, “The house and I clicked.” Zac had no way of
knowing what the psychic had heard or what the ghost had said.
I’ve been
following ghost hunting for decades now. I have never forgotten a ghost hunting
show (years before the Dan Ackroyd’s Psi
Factor) by Peter Ackroyd, Dan Ackroyd’s father, that revealed some of the
best film footage I have ever seen to this day, including night footage of a
very lively kitchen where drawers and cabinet doors were opening and closing,
plus some lovely ghost writing in the air. This show is also no longer
available. Early ghost hunting used a lot of Polaroids, recordings, and night
cameras, still used today. In Dreamwater,
in 1995, Peter Treadwell is struggling to come to terms with his wife, Beth’s
murder (When Two Women Die).
Meanwhile, his little girl, Emily, sees and speaks to her mother’s ghost. Peter’s
son, Pete, is eager to invite ghost hunters in to investigate. Young Pete takes
a quick Polaroid after his little sister says their mom is right there in the
kitchen. The snap develops right before their eyes into a shining orb with a
world of special effects within it. Later, the fifteen-year-old ghost hunters –
using early 1995 technology - find more evidence, including Polaroids of ghost
writing, EVP recordings, night vision (One of the fifteen-year-old ghost
hunters has a laptop with early Army technology.) and night film of a stuffed
animal being petted (obviously, night vision filming is more “earlier-than-the-rest-of-us”
U.S. Army technology). In Dreamwater,
a psychic is used by the ghost hunters to communicate with Beth’s spirit.
Questions are asked and answered through a child’s toy. Later, Beth’s spirit
has a unique interchange with her husband, comforting him as only she can.
orbs
(Each one as unique as each spirit!)
Last, but hardly
least, I haven’t mentioned Edward Dimond’s magic telescope, which allowed Ned’s
mother Rosie to view her son far away in the Jamaicas, a comfort that got her
arrested for witchcraft. Dimond’s telescope is legendary in Marblehead and was
used by the old psychic to watch for Marblehead’s fishing vessels in trouble on
the high seas (When Two Women Die).
When we think of
the paranormal being “para” or outside normal experience, we are ignoring, or
at least, taking for granted the wonders going on all around us. When someone
says to me, “I don’t believe in all that crap. I need scientific evidence,” I
like to say, “Look around you. Do you see anything that is less fantastic than
the paranormal? Anything science truly understands? A tree? A flower? A dog? The
sun?” I doubt it.
©Patricia Goodwin 2013
Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, about Marblehead legends and true crime and its sequel, Dreamwater, about the Salem witch trials and the vicious 11-year-old pirate Ned Low. Holy Days is her third novel, about the sexual, psychological seduction of Gloria Wisher and her subsequent transformation. Her newest poetry books are Telling Time By Apples, And Other Poems About Life On The Remnants of Olde Humphrey Farme, illustrated by the author, and Java Love: Poems of a Coffeehouse.
