Hey!

Apologies, although I have one experiment to write up before this one took place, I'm going to 'skip' to ensure I don't forget any details:

This experiment was very much a last-minute thing. Bit of boredom as the holiday ended, a local event and something different to the norm (I tend to investigate big locations with diverse history such as castles and manor houses, whereas this was a Longhouse in Gwent used as a B&B - can't give any more detail than that as it's a private dwelling)

As we arrived, I was glad to see that Ian, the medium I have mentioned in my previous blogs (http://www.aura-artz.co.uk), was present. As this was an 8-hour experiment in what was essentially only 3 rooms, I'm going to cut out the long storytelling and pick out the interesting points of each room (the rooms were the lounge, four poster double bedroom and the twin bedroom). Y'kno how you can get a 'feeling' about a place when you arrive? Well, I felt very comfortable here, not even slightly nervous. Ok, so the report:

Four poster double bedroom: This room was very cold and within minutes of stepping inside I had a dull headache. Others reported stomach cramps and a feeling of dizziness, similar to being intoxicated. Many people picked up the feeling that somebody had been ill or had died in this room as well as the feeling of animals. Some people reported feeling a cat jumping onto the bed beside them. Myself and one other lady heard talking in the corridor outside the room (we were all in the bedroom at this stage). Ian picked up a ghost of a Victorian lady and the spirit of a gentleman as well as dogs and cats. We did a number of vigils and seances. During one seance, when we were split into small groups (I think there were 6 of us at this seance), many people reported feeling a draught (despite there being none from the window), others complained of back ache (this was explained to be spirits drawing energy from the chakra points) and others (5 on different vigils/seances during the night, to be precise), who sat on a chair by a dressing table, reported feeling as if they were being leaned on or pushed from behind, causing severe discomfort to their backs. There were also lots of creakings of the floorboards and thumps on the wall in an alcove where there was a single bed. We also think we heard a cat wailing - we were unsure whether this was a creaky door downstairs, but upon investigation, none of the doors creaked. For me, the most interesting time in this room was when a small group of 6 of us returned at the end of the night to conduct one final seance. When we entered the room, the duvet on the single bed had been pulled back and was hanging off the end of the bed. We checked with the previous group whether they'd been sat on the bed and had done this accidentally, but they confirmed that they had only been sat on the four-poster bed. Go figure!

Twin Bedroom: I didn't really pick up much of anything in this room. There was very little physical activity, more sensory. We tried an experiment called 'transfiguring' or 'shadowing', where a spirit will 'mask' your body to look like it is (in the dark, with lots of shadows with your eyes trying to make out some kind of form, this is obviously open to a lot of criticism). Anyway, the first lady tried and everybody reported that they thought she had grown taller and slimmer. Ian felt he could see a Puritan man called Charles. I also tried this experiment - for your info, I'm curvy, 5'3, with long hair. I wasn't wearing any bulky clothes or heels. Only 2 people managed to see a change, one of which being my father. There was a very dim light behind me, which is what people were using to make out changes; my dad thought I'd grown taller (& I confirmed I felt taller) and he could see a 'Guy Fawkes'-type gentleman. Another lady said that she could see a red glow around me and had to keep looking away because in her mind's eye all she could see was burnt skin. She had the feeling that the spirit gentleman had died from being burnt. Ian also picked up that he felt that there was a history of a fire in the house (this was neither confirmed or denied by the residents). When Ian started talking about the gentleman's Catholic roots, and how he would have been persecuted, I inexplicably felt an overwhelming sadness and tears started forming in my eyes. My dad also picked up on the spirit of an eldery Victorian-era lady at the back of this room.

Lounge: This was my favourite room; I felt very comfortable here and didn't want to leave. We did 2 experiments here; glass moving and table tipping. Through the glass tipping, we picked up on a gentleman who lived in the area around 1920-1930 called Mr Edwards (we think the first name was William). We got slightly confused when we had a 'yes' answer to whether the gentleman lived in the house or whether he was a family member trying to reach a relative. Although the glass corresponded with our questions, occasionally it would point to one lady in the group. She later confirmed that she had a family member called William Edwards who was buried in the local church, hence why there may have been some confusion.

Table tipping... the phenomena that occurs when mediums place their hands flat on the top of a table and it starts to move, with the energy of a spirit. There have been reports of tables dancing on their own and even following commands from mediums to 'put themselves away' - hmm. 4 groups tried this, only 2 were successful. As one person was present in both of the successful groups, I was slightly suspicious. I was fortunate to be in one of the successful groups. Although I could feel the table vibrating from the energy, I do feel that she may have instigated the actual movement of the table (it rocked from side to side and occasionally would move backwards and forwards). During my experiment, we had rock music on in the background (Born to be Wild, to be precise) to get everybody singing, laughing and dancing to raise the energy in the room. This seemed to have a positive effect, however I'm not ruling out the fact that us bopping along may have had something to do with it.

On the second table tipping experiment, it was attempted to use the movement to contact the spirit. It was alleged that the spirit was the grandfather of one of the girls (not the one I suspected to be fixing the experiment). I 'subtley' brought up that to control the experiment, i.e. to ensure that this girl wasn't being taken advantage of (the questions were getting as ridiculous as "if you're proud of me, please stop the table", which could've been fixed easily), I asked Ian to ask her some control questions and to describe the man he could see. She confirmed the details he was giving her which put my mind to rest slightly. The biggest shock here was a bottle of Coke seemingly flying off the table and hitting somebody in the leg. We attempted to nudge/kick the table afterwards, to see how hard it would have to be done for the bottle to fall, to ensure nobody had done it accidentally and didn't want to own up. However, it would have had to be quite forceable as the table was very solid and it made enough noise that we should have been able to hear it - interesting!

All in all, an interesting night. I liked the fact that it was a small venue with a small group of investigators. Would I return? No, I wasn't convinced by all experiments and personally didn't sense as much as usual. The owners reported afterwards that they and their guests had picked up on the following since they had moved into the property:

1. Cats jumping on the bed
2. People standing around the four poster bed attempting to make contact
3. A guest was pushed out of bed
4. The quilts being pulled off the beds
5. Footsteps and voices in the corridors
6. The smell of farm animals (manure etc) This would have been used at some point as an old-style farm e.g. animals downstairs, people upstairs)
7. The feeling of being watched

Very interesting!