The Ghost Photographer

by Julie Rieger

  Then I say a protection prayer to safeguard the space (see appendix one, “Protect Your Space”). You can use whatever prayer aligns you with a sense of the divine, but here’s my favorite one from Brenda:

  I bring down a ray of divine light filled with love and protection. I draw a circle around my energetic body. Into the circle I place the white light of peace, the blue light of healing, the clear red light of energy, and the golden light of God. I direct that nothing and no one shall come between my circle and me. And so it is. Amen.

  I learned from Brenda to move counterclockwise inside rooms to move energy out, and clockwise inside to move energy in. Once I feel that the energy has cleared, I’ll sometimes say another prayer of gratitude for the spirits that assisted me. Occasionally I leave a small trail of sea salt around a house or property because it acts as a natural purifier; some suggest that it actually absorbs negative energy. I also sometimes leave my smudging tools outside a front door as a reminder to any spirits with the audacity of even thinking about creeping back in. And guess what? The air is almost always around 50 percent lighter after a space is cleared.

  Brenda has given me a few other indispensable insights. It’s a huge privilege to be in a human body, which reminds me of a famous saying by French Jesuit philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”

  I take this understanding about the seniority and authority we have over spirits quite seriously—and get bolder in my assertions as I house clear. Once a room is complete, I sometimes open a window or door and practically yell with conviction: Anything unaligned to my highest good, leave now! (Sometimes I’ll simply cut to the chase and tell certain asshole spirits to fuck off—but I’m getting ahead of myself.)

  Soon enough, prayer becomes an integral part of my spiritual practice.

  God only knows (pun sort of unintended) that a lot has been written about the power of prayer. Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard once said: “Prayer does not change God, but it changes he who prays.” Spiritual teacher Iyanla Vanzant took it a few steps further: “In my deepest, darkest moments,” she wrote, “what really got me through was a prayer. Sometimes my prayer was ‘Help me.’ Sometimes a prayer was ‘Thank you.’ What I’ve discovered is that intimate connection and communication with my creator will always get me through because I know my support, my help, is just a prayer away.”

  Replace the word “creator” with whatever higher force rocks your world, and you’ll start tapping into the true power of prayer.

  This, of course, was totally off my radar for most of my life. As a kid I knew the Lord’s Prayer by rote, but didn’t really pay attention to it. I was mostly interested in getting some of that “daily bread” after church (preferably the unwholesome white kind that you tear off the crust and roll into a walnut-size ball before stuffing into your mouth).

  But then one fine day, all that changed. I’m clearing our house and feel the unwelcome presence of something or someone. The air suddenly feels dense and fear rolls through every cell in my body. Without premeditation, I begin to recite the Lord’s Prayer. I’m deeply committed to the process, but a part of me is still thinking: WTF? Did years of being an acolyte as a kid and doing sit-stand-kneel calisthenics suddenly pay off?

  I’m not sure what’s going on, but as soon as I say, “Our Father who art in Heaven,” the fear vanishes. To put it simply, I’ve suddenly harnessed the power of prayer like I never experienced in church. And as quickly as it reenters my life, it becomes a forceful positive incantation.

  Now I realize that for some the Lord’s Prayer can be a trigger, depending on your religious affiliation (or lack thereof). But you don’t have to use any formal prayer per se to harness that power; anything will do (except, say a dirty limerick), as long as it’s said with conviction in evoking a higher force. You can say the Lord’s Prayer or you can do the Buddhist om mani padme hum or any protection prayer, words, incantation, or mantra that resonates with you. Hey, you can make your own—as long as you’re sincerely connecting to a power greater than you. (Do a Google search on “protection prayers” and thirty million entries come up.)

  For me, however, the Lord’s Prayer not only becomes one of my tools, it becomes a sort of psychic divining rod. If I recite the prayer while I’m clearing a space and forget the words at any point, that’s a sure sign that either a ghost or a not-so-friendly dark energy is present.

  This really blows me away and comes home to me when I’m space clearing our friend Stephanie’s house. As I’m reciting the Lord’s Prayer while smudging in her office, I stop in front of a painting and draw a total blank. I suddenly can’t remember one single word of the prayer for the life of me. I look over at Stephanie. “What’s with this painting?” I ask. “It’s stopping me—but not in a bad way. Is there a significance to it?”

  “My uncle made that painting,” she says, looking a little awestruck. “He was a priest.” Turns out she and her uncle were very close. No doubt he recited the Lord’s Prayer on a daily basis for most of his life, and as I’m standing there in front of his painting, I get a distinct “sense” from him. When I say “him,” I mean that his energy, his spirit, is somehow clear and palpable. That “sense” is that he feels ignored.

  “He just wants you to talk about him more, Steph,” I reply.

  Stephanie shakes her head and confirms she hasn’t spent much time connecting with him since he passed.

  A few weeks later at Stephanie’s birthday party, I recount to her friend Kenna how I drew a blank in front of that painting while saying the Lord’s Prayer; her eyes light up like neon saucers. “That’s how my mom started off being a psychic!” she says.

  Turns out Kenna’s mother is a well-known psychic in the Dallas area and was written up in the Dallas Morning News some time ago. In the life-imitates-art department, a few weeks later I go to see the movie The Witch. I love horror flicks, by the way, but not the bloody disgusting ones, only the psychological or paranormal kind. The Witch is a paranormal tale based on a real New England family in the 1630s that was ripped apart by witchcraft and freaky satanic spirits. Produced by Jay Van Hoy, the movie was meticulously researched and reenacted down to the literal seams of the clothes worn by early colonists. Van Hoy even drew from a collection of Elizabethan witch pamphlets he found in the New York Public Library.

  In one pivotal scene, the father circles the family around his son, who’s possessed by a demon, and demands that everyone recite the Lord’s Prayer. Halfway though the prayer, his other two children (young twins) fall to the ground writhing and become catatonic, saying that they forgot the words to the Lord’s Prayer. Why? Turns out they’re also possessed by demons along with their older brother.

  Now, I get it—it’s a movie. I know the difference between “based on a true story” and “inspired by true events.” I also know that the Lord’s Prayer isn’t kryptonite or a silver bullet that instantly sets off one’s psychic awareness of spirits. That said, after these first few experiences I’m starting to really pay attention. And nothing grips my attention more than an experience I have in the house of one particular friend.

  Meet thirtysomething Alex Van Camp. If you look up the word “handsome” in a dictionary, you’ll find Alex. Alex is the epitome of the word. He’s more handsome than Ryan Gosling or Ryan Reynolds. In fact, he’s more handsome than all Ryans combined. Naturally, his wife is the epitome of the word “pretty.” Even her name sounds pretty: Dawn. Honestly, can you imagine an unattractive person named Dawn? She is blond and blue-eyed and has a yoga body. Get the picture?

  Alex and I met when he was an ad salesman. I found out early in our relationship that he thought I was a supreme bitch the first time we met. It’s true, I can be tough as nails at work. Sometimes, admittedly, I come across as bitchy. Okay, fine—I can be a total bitch and I don’t suffer fools well. Shoot me.

  A year or so after our first alleged bitchy encounter
, our mutual friend Meredith asked us both out for drinks. Unbeknownst to me, Alex made an agreement with his wife to call him at a certain time so he had an excuse to bail, not wanting to waste any more time with this bitchy woman. The three of us sit down with our cocktails and begin to talk.

  After whipping out my pendulum to read their chakras and make sure they’re aligned (more on that in appendix five, “The Crystal Kingdom”), I naturally start to force myself on Alex, suggesting that I come over and clear his house. Meredith encourages him, so he gives in. A few weeks later Suzanne and I head to Alex and Dawn’s condo down in Manhattan Beach. I have my bag full of space-clearing tricks: sage, feather, abalone shell, and lighter. For some reason, I also grab some holy water, blessed salt, and a bottle of Saint Michael oil. I have no idea who blessed that water, by the way. It might have been blessed by some guy named Wayne for all I know. The Saint Michael oil might have been blessed by a guy named Mike. (Mike might have blessed the salt, too. I’m clearly not picky about this shit.)

  We arrive at their pad with hugs all around and are greeted by their sweet little pooch; then I begin to scope the place out. My trusty assistant/wife holds my stuff and hands me things as I need them, bless her heart. Suzanne is always supportive and rolls with my punches. She laughs at my quirks. She loved me when we first met despite my raggedy jean shorts, permed hair, bright-red lipstick, and penny loafers held together with duct tape (because this Okie didn’t know at the time that you could actually get your soles replaced). She might be “light and airy,” like Roxane said, but she is still the string to my balloon.

  I start in Alex and Dawn’s office, and all goes well. I really don’t talk much when I’m doing my thing, just recite the Lord’s Prayer over and over as I perform my house-clearing ritual. We work through the office, then to another spare bedroom, making our way counterclockwise.

  Finally we get to a guest bathroom, and that’s when it happens: I cannot retrieve a single word of the Lord’s Prayer to save my life. At one point I actually lose my equilibrium and start to teeter—and I am not a teeterer. I have gravity on my side with my short legs strapped to flip-flops. I simply do not teeter—ever. But now I’m so thrown off that I lose my balance, bump into Suzanne, and almost knock her over.

  “What the fuck is going on in this bathroom?” I ask.

  “Well, our dog really doesn’t like to come in here,” Dawn replies a bit sheepishly.

  No shit, I think. I wouldn’t like to come in here, either. The air is so heavy it takes my breath away. Whatever’s lingering in the room sucks big time and I need to get it out of here. Mind you, I don’t really know what “it” might be; remember, there’s no instruction manual for what I’m doing.

  “Baby, get my bag,” I say to Suzanne.

  “Okay, honey,” she replies.

  She comes back with my bag, and I home in on the ceiling vent, flicking holy water toward it; then I toss around the blessed-by-Wayne salt. I’m making quite a mess at this point, but no one seems to care, which makes me wonder.

  “So, Alex, what aren’t you telling me about this bathroom?” I ask.

  “Well, um, every evening when we come home, the bathroom door is closed and sometimes locked. And, well, it’s open every day before we go to work.”

  “Really? You didn’t think that was an important detail to share?”

  “Well, we just wanted to see if you would find it. We didn’t know if you were the real deal or not.” He looks both embarrassed and seriously spooked.

  Fair enough, I guess, but fuck you ran through my head. I turn to his wife.

  “Okay. Delta Dawn.” That’s what Suzanne and I call Dawn; sadly she and Alex are too young to get the Tanya Tucker reference. “Will you please get me a small bowl, preferably a ceramic one?”

  Delta Dawn comes back with an oil-and-vinegar dipping bowl.

  “You know that this is your bowl’s resting place. This will be its last use,” I warn her.

  “What do you mean?” she asks.

  “What I mean is that I’m going to put the whole bottle of Saint Michael oil in this bowl and leave it here by the sink. You’ll know when it’s time to get rid of it, but don’t pour it down your drain. Take it outside and bury it in the ground, bowl and all. Mother Nature will take care of this little bastard.”

  Honestly, I have no idea what I am saying. I’m not even sure that these words are coming out of my mouth (except for “little bastard”). I feel like I’m being guided.

  We leave the bathroom and make our way around the rest of their condo, then head for a restaurant, down a few cocktails, and talk for hours. How fucking crazy was that experience? I ask. And why the fuck did you not want to investigate the invisible shit going on before I came on the scene for your bathroom makeover?

  Eventually I come to understand that my relationship with Alex is not coincidental. Not enough time has passed as friends to explain our mutual love and admiration for one another, but energetically it makes total sense. I begin to understand that Alex’s testing of my ghost-hunting skills, though he no doubt didn’t recognize it consciously, was a service to my soul; he was doing me a favor by not telling me in advance what they were encountering in their guest bathroom.

  You’re probably wondering what happened afterward with the ghost activity in their bathroom. Well, it stopped that day and never happened again. One day Delta Dawn felt it was time to dispose of the Saint Michael oil and she did so as instructed. Maybe one day I should get Julie the Evil Ghost Slayer printed on a V-neck T-shirt. (And yes, I am specifying V-neck because I hate crewnecks; they make me look like I don’t have a neck, and men who don’t pay attention call me “sir.” That’s why I broke up with crew necks in 2011—some guy called me “sir” at a San Diego Chargers game. Fuck that guy. I will retract Alex’s fuck and give it to that guy at the Chargers game.)

  The experience in Alex’s condo isn’t the only thing that ties me to him, however; our ties went deeper and darker, in surprising ways. What is clear by then, however, is that I’ve reconnected to the power of prayer in a way that I never experienced before.

  So I keep on with my house clearing and my prayers, hauling my tool kit around everywhere I go. I’m on a mission like some sort of hobbit hell-bent on house clearing every corner of Middle Earth. “An elf’s works is never done,” Brenda tells me. And she’s right.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Jack of All Clairs

  Time’s not a line. It’s a circle or a figure eight or a goddamn Slinky. If you can believe that, I don’t know why you can’t believe that someone might be able to glimpse something farther along the Slinky.

  —MAGGIE STIEFVATER, THE DREAM THIEVES

  The deeper I trek into the cosmic wilderness, the more intensely I start to experience senses called “clairs” that introduce me to even stranger corners of our universe. Before I began my ghost photography, I thought that Clair was a popular girl’s name or a place to buy crappy bangles at the mall. I didn’t realize that the term was used to define the multitude of senses we possess beyond our sixth sense. What I did know by this time is that when one door opens in life (in this case, my ghost photography), another door opens, and sometimes a wall gets knocked down or the roof blows off.

  The Oxford English Dictionary defines our sixth sense this way: “A supposed intuitive faculty by which a person or animal perceives facts and regulates action without the direct use of any of the five senses.” This sixth sense is the general category that houses all our clair abilities.

  The “Abcderium of Extra/Sensory Powers” (sixthsensereader.org) explains the origin of the clair naming system. “The English-language prefix ‘clair-,’ from the French ‘clair(e),’ meaning ‘clear,’ when coupled with a root associated with a conventionally recognized sense-ability, generally implies some extraordinary or super-sensory extension or ‘doubling’ of such abilities in a mode which exceeds limits to the availability of sense-data inherent in conventional understandings. Examples include clai
rvoyance (‘clear seeing’).”

  The most well-known clair is certainly clairvoyance, which literally means “clear-sighted” in French. It wasn’t until the mid–nineteenth century that we attributed to it the meaning of having psychic or supernatural abilities beyond our normal five senses, including the ability to intuit future events before they happen. But there are other types of clairs. In fact, there are enough of them to fill a baseball roster.

  Here are the clairs at a glance:

  Clairvoyance is the ability to see psychic energy as words, colors, visions, videos, or pictures.

  Clairaudience is the ability to hear psychic energy as words and sounds.

  Clairsentience is the ability to feel or sense psychic energy in your physical body and translate it to messages.

  Claircognizance is the psychic ability to know information without the prior knowledge or experience. This shares a common border with precognition, or the ability to see events before they happen.

  Clairolfaction is the psychic ability to smell information that is not in your surroundings.

  Clairgustance is the psychic ability to taste information without the substance physically in your mouth.

  Clairtaction is the psychic ability to physically feel the act of being touched by a spiritual being.

  Clairtangency is the psychic ability to hold an object or touch another person and know information or history about the object or person.

  Clairempathy is the psychic ability to experience another person’s emotional state, goals, intentions, and even physical pain.

  There are incredible contemporary überpsychics like Brenda who’ve experienced many or all of these clairs, and historical heavy hitters like Joan of Arc, for example. She was an unassuming French woman who no doubt had many clairvoyant senses, but her clairaudience went down in history like no other—and stirred up a lot of shit.