March 5, 2007

The Witchcraft Connection: Metaphysical Investigations into the Paranormal

Part Seven of Belle Gunness: McClung Road and the Blood Farm Horror
By Marcus Foxglove Griffin

Voices in the Night
The minute I commented on the stars, I stared hearing whispered voices somewhere close behind me. The rest of the team had already ventured beyond the first few rows of graves and were a good thirty yards away, so I was reasonably certain that it wasn't their voices I was hearing. As I walked toward my teammates, the voices seemed to follow me, but they grew weaker as I walked. By the time I rejoined the team, the voices had ceased altogether. I made note of what I had heard on my audio recorder and led the team deep into the oldest section of Patton Cemetery.

Although team WISP spent the next few hours investigating the four sections that make up the center of Patton's funerary grounds, we were unable to detect anything that suggested paranormal activity occurring in the area. These sections include Lake View, the Plains, and Plum Tree Grove, with the semicircular Wayside Retreat at the heart of Patton Cemetery. Other than the voices I had heard earlier and the possible apparition Becca had witnessed on the outskirts of the cemetery, the team had little else to report. The girls had come across several graves that gave them a tingle in the pits of their stomachs when they stood near them, but nothing more.

At the time of our investigation, the older sections of Patton Cemetery offered little in the way of otherworldly feelings or sensations. The spooky trees and century-old monuments towering overhead were interesting to look at and stimulated our imaginations, but we sensed nothing supernatural lurking within their shadows. I commented that perhaps the ghosts in this part of the cemetery were "too old and crusty to make contact" and suggested that we might have better luck in one of Patton's newer sections. My teammates agreed, so we packed up or equipment and headed for the van. Unbeknownst to us, things were about to get interesting.

Gardens of the Dead
Even after dark, distinguishing the newer sections of Patton Cemetery from the older sections was simplicity itself. While the older sections are a snarl of trees, graves, statuary, and dirt pathways, the newer gravesites, which are known as the garden sections, are open fields of graves with modern headstones surrounded by paved roadways. When we entered the section of Patton Cemetery known as the Garden of Devotion, the investigation took a turn toward the eerie.

There was an unspoken understanding between the team that the garden sections felt different from the older sections, and not in a way that was comforting. To the eye, the older sections of Patton Cemetery are decidedly much more ominous, but in terms of feelings and sensations, the garden sections were downright creepy. The air felt heavier and the shadows seemed menacing. Solar powered crosses dotted the fields of graves, and their light washed the headstones in an eerie blue glow. Unlike the older sections, there seemed to be a looming presence in the gardens. Instead of individually dispersing throughout the gravesite as is typical of our investigations, we felt compelled to roam the gardens in pairs. Making sure to stay within earshot of the rest of the team, Becca and I headed into the Garden of Meditation to shoot video, while Sampsun and Amber patrolled the outskirts of the nearby Garden of Memories. We didn't remain separated for long.

Next Month: Part eight of Belle Gunness and the Blood Farm Horror: Hunting the Ghosts of Patton Cemetery

Marcus Foxglove Griffin has been a student and teacher of the occult for over twenty years and is the creator and lead investigator for Witches In Search of the Paranormal (WISP). He is High Priest for the Temple of Aradia located in northern Indiana and teacher in the temple’s school. Under the penname Lord Foxglove, he is the author of Advancing the Witches’ Craft (New Page Books, 2005) and numerous articles in the areas of Witchcraft and metaphysics. "The Witchcraft Connection" is Marcus Foxglove Griffin's monthly column on the metaphysical and paranormal.