Dear Julia:

At a party I attended recently, the subject of ghosts came up, and an acquaintance told a story about how she and her husband bought an old house and moved in. They lived there for more than a year, during which time everything seemed normal. Then they started renovating the house, and that's when strange things began to happen. Tools that were left out overnight would disappear, the electricity would go out for no apparent reason when they were just starting in on a project, and things like that. They joked about having a ghost until they woke up one morning and discovered that a container of floor varnish had been splashed all over the walls of the room they were working on! This really freaked them out since they had been sleeping upstairs and no one else was in the house. Several similar stories came up, and ever since I've been wondering why there seems to be such a strong connection between home renovations and ghostly activity.

Donna

Dear Donna:

First we should agree on what we mean by the term "ghost." For the sake of this article, let's assume that a ghost is a metaphysical being that used to be physically incarnate here on Earth, which is now a multi-dimensional being in that its conscious existence is split between the physical dimension and another plane of existence. It may be that a ghost is simply a spirit that has such a strong attachment to the physical that its vibration tends to drag down so close to the vibrational range of the physical realm that it can sometimes manifest in an ethereal manner or be perceived by people who are able to perceive a higher range of frequencies than the average person. (We call these people psychics or mediums.)

With conscious ghostly entities, the increase in phenomena that occurs when new home owners start to renovate can usually be traced to how the spirits attached to the home feel about the changes that are being made. Just like people, some ghosts resist change and want to put a stop to things. They like things they way they have always been. This seems particularly true of ghosts who built a home themselves and/or ghosts who put a great deal of love and care into the home. This sounds like the sort of ghost your friend was dealing with since the phenomena you describe all sounds like it was designed to thwart the renovation efforts or at least convey displeasure with what was being done.

On the flip side, it seems that many times ghosts are responsible for people falling in love with a house at first sight and feeling compelled to buy it and fix it up or restore it to its former glory. I have heard a number of these stories. A couple will look at a house and immediately feel compelled to buy it. Sometimes they'll even have had dreams of the house and then recognize the house from their dreams and assume this is the house they're meant to buy. They then move in and become obsessed with making certain changes or working non-stop to restore it.

Many have felt very strongly about making certain particular changes such as painting a room a certain color or pulling up carpet to reveal the original wood flooring underneath, and upon researching the house, later discovered that they unknowingly made things look very similar to the way they did when a former owner of the house lived there. Some have even found old furnishings or portraits in the attic and felt compelled to put them in certain positions in certain rooms and later discovered that those items were in those same positions when former owners lived in the house. Some home owners have stated that trying to resist these particular compulsions or take a break from renovations led to an increase in ghostly phenomena.

When psychic mediums are called into these situations, they often relay that the spirit very much likes what is being done to the house and wants renovations to continue. The spirits confess that they are the ones who "called" the new owners to the house and influenced them to feel compelled to buy it, and have been been trying to impress certain plans and ideas on the new owners' minds in order to make them do what they want. These former home owners are basically restoring the home through the new owners. It must be pretty frustrating to both live in a house and no longer be physically able to care for it as in the past.

There are other reasons why house renovations may stir up more ghostly activity. For one thing, many ghosts are basically sleep-walking through the astral, so they can remain dormant for years. (They exist beyond physical space/time, so they don't experience the passage of time as we do.) When we do something unusual, however, we can <q>wake them up.</q> Imagine that you are taking a nap at home. You may continue to sleep despite everyday noises and activities happening in your house, but if someone were to start tearing walls down, you would immediately wake up and wonder what in the world was going on. Further, if you weren't planning on doing any construction, you would probably be pretty perturbed to wake up and find your house under renovation.

Of course, it's also possible that workers who come into a home to renovate it bring spirits with them who were not there before. Another possibility is that starting renovations attracts spirits who are curious to see what all the commotion is about. These may be "neighboring" spirits who wander over to check out what's going on.

Another reason why house renovations tend to lead to an increase in ghostly activity is because all of the commotion and all of the people in the house provide spirits with a lot more energy to work with. The energy emitted by the big power tools used in renovations can also be drawn upon by spirits in order to get our attention. Some of the other things besides home renovations that are strongly associated with ghostly activity support the idea that ghosts need lots of electro-magnetic energy in order to manifest in some way in the physical. This is why things like high EMF readings and changes in the Earth's magnetic field such as full moons, thunderstorms and solar flares are associated with ghostly activity.

Imagine that a spirit tried to get people's attention shortly after dying but eventually gave up in frustration. The spirit has now been attached to a certain person or place for a long time, and has been basically just slumbering in the etheric because there is nothing else it can do. If we had to hang out by ourselves in a waiting room where no one seemed to be able to see or hear us for years and years, we'd probably eventually go catatonic. Now imagine that the commotion of construction wakes the spirit up, and suddenly it realizes that it now has more energy at its disposal than ever before. This is sort of like someone who has been stranded on a deserted island finding a huge box of flares and spotting a boat of new people going by. House renovations provide a great opportunity for spirits to try to get rescued or at least finally get someone's attention.

It is interesting to note that when spirits show up during home renovations, they tend to disappear once the work is done. The fact that this sort of haunting tends to be short-lived supports the theories that the spirits are either trying to convey their feelings about the renovations or drawing upon the energy of the renovations in order to manifest.

- Julia

For the latest column, check out this week's edition of Kajama.

MuseNet Home Page

MuseNet Readings Information Page

MuseNet Library

email me