Local Haunts

In Costa Rica, I like to walk into the forest every morning to commune with the spirit world. I can’t do that in New Orleans. I try to stay centered here but it's not easy. Quite frankly, I’m heartbroken to be away from the forest and would much rather leave the man-made world behind and return once again to where I belong.

Luckily, there is much in New Orleans to distract one from heartache, despite the irony of Katrina having caused so much. We are entering into Halloween season and that has added much to Big Easy madness. Huge crowds arrived this week for Voodoo Fest and other seasonal celebrations so it’s quite normal to see vampires, voodoo queens and assorted other monsters wandering around the Quarter with ‘Huge Ass Beer’ in hand. And Halloween is still a week away! Some of our local Quarter friends invited us to a ‘progressive’ dinner next Friday as a form of recovery from the spooky spectacles. The Quarter-Rat idea of recovery is a long sprawling dinner that starts at somebody’s house on one end of Royal Street and wining, dining and dancing our way to the last house on the other side. However, everyone will be dressed in normal cocktail attire.

Gerry took me to a paranormal investigation this past Wednesday at the Pharmacy Museum. We joined some locals who have come across ‘entities’ throughout New Orleans, especially in the French Quarter, and they now wanted a shot at experiencing one of the infamous pharmacy ghosts. The best prospect would be that 18th century doctor who lived in the house and died raving mad of syphilis and mercury intoxication – self administered as a remedy. But we also could run into that crazy old chicken-bone chewing laundry woman from the 19th century or maybe that slightly disheveled Victorian lady addicted to morphine. There were so many ghosts to investigate just in the Pharmacy Museum. But our hosts told us that if we really wanted a good scare, we ought to check out the old Haunted Mortuary on Canal street or the Petit Theatre on Rue Chartres – where a bunch of kids still run around up in the attic, or go check out a slew of haunted houses all around town.

Turns out, we live in the most haunted city in the country. There were 3 psychics leading us on the investigation at this particular haunted establishment. The head parapsychologist was an affable chap who has been ghost-busting for 20 plus years. He’s been featured in documentaries like “New Orleans Rich and Haunted” on channels like A&E and Discovery. We have not personally met any ghosts in New Orleans, or psychics for that matter, but most of the others at the Pharmacy event knew the psychics, as well as all the local haunts around New Orleans.

So the psychics set the scene by briefing us on this or that entity around town, and as they describe their wacky, unnatural experiences, my mind wanders. I begin wondering how I can raid the laudanum jug and blame it on the pharmacy ghost. Then the parapsychologist assigns Gerry and me the task of using a magnetic device to measure any activity, while some of us follow a kind of goofy female psychic named Daena upstairs and all around the premises in search of something or other. Not much happens for a while. Daena tries to get people to feel the energy standing next to her up in the attic but the only magnetic activity Gerry and I could pickup was an electric wire in the wall.

Finally, we walk back down to the 2nd floor and - I'm not kidding - I suddenly get this strong feeling coming from one of the bedrooms on the 2nd floor. And you know me - incurable loud mouth - I tell Daena that I had this feeling of energy and so now Daena gets quite excited and leads us all into the bedroom - about 15 of us crowding in there, and I swear to God, I was feeling this Energy! It wasn't anything scary or foreboding – more like the kind of energy I get in the forest. So I look at Daena and say to her:

"I feel something - do you feel something too?"

And she looked deeply at me for a minute and all of a sudden started crying out to Gerry:

“Go get Cari! Please go get Cari….Cari!!! ….Cari!!!!"

Cari Joy is a New Orleans psychic who was at that moment leading half of our group elsewhere in the building. So Gerry runs off to look for Cari, and Daena just seems to have a meltdown right in front of me - and everyone else (none of whom felt anything at all).

Cari arrives, orders Daena out of the room and tries to focus the energy. But there was nothing. By this time, I had slid to the back of the room and behaved like nothing had happened at all, much less prompting a scene from our psychic. We all go back downstairs, but Daena stays up there and finally – it’s now 10:30PM - Gerry and I got out of there.

Moral of the story: If you feel energy around a psychic, keep your mouth shut!

But I did wonder what happened to poor Daena and felt kind of responsible - with my stupid “I feel it …do you feel it” line - so I emailed Cari and asked her if Daena was okay. Here’s her response:


Greetings Victoria,
Thank you for contacting me with your concern. I felt the energy in the bedroom when I brought my group in, as well. I felt that it was connected to loss during childbirth or shortly there after. So no, I did not feel it was negative just sad and heavy. Great job in using your own sensitivity!

Daena is what is considered a natural empath/medium. She is unable to stop entities from using her as a channel. She has learned to alert others when this is about to occur as it can be quite unnerving. Under different circumstances, I might have assisted in facilitating the experience but my instinct then was to pull her out of the area thus breaking the connection.

When I was younger, I was much like Daena but didn’t like to lose myself to spirit. I was fortunate to have excellent resources to learn how to turn it off as necessary, maintaining consciousness while gathering information. However, some choose to continue to use somnambulant communication.

I hope that I was able to answer your question. If you would like to explore the paranormal further, I suggest visiting the Haunted Mortuary. Thank you both for attending and perhaps I will see you in future!

So there it is! Quite frankly, I much prefer communing with the spirit world in the forest.