Category Archives: Folk Beliefs

The Albino Donkey in Grand Canyon Sweat Lodge

“So our tribe is Umatilla. That’s the name. That’s the name of our tribe. It’s in northern eastern Oregon. Okay. And. And, you know, while I was out there, one of the things I do is a sweat lodge.

It’s like a ceremony where you go into, like, this mud igloo, and they get these, like, blackstone rocks, and they get really, really hot all day long.

And. And then you. You go in there. The rocks in there. And then you go in there and you sit in, like, a little crisscross applesauce, you know, position.

And they bring water in there. And then they. They close up the. The. The. The hut, and they’ve got herbs on top of there, too, like, you know, sage and other stuff.

So they get that water on that hot rock, and it just like.

It’s like a. You just hear, like, sizzling on rocks, and then that steam gets released within the hut.

Well, when you’re doing this, it. It literally feels like. It feels like your skin is melting. It’s so darn hot. You feel like. You feel like surely my. I’m gonna see, like, my skin melting off my arms because it’s so hot.

And you’re like, oh, let me blow. Let me cool myself down a little bit. So you. So you gotta blow. And it feels like you’re breathing fire on top of your skin.

Likeinstinct that’s a bad idea. Let’s not do that. So you. You have to contain your breathing in a nice, slow, slow breath so you’re not breathing too hard.

So you have to control that whole panic inset, which, you know, a lot of people can’t handle it because you kind of start to panic.

And. And then you get into this, like, you know, once you get that slow breathing, you can get this, like, really nice and meditative state.

And of course, there’s drumming going on outside where, you know, so that, that also, the, the, the drumming of the, of the drums puts you also in a, in a nice sort of trance.

And then, once you sit in for 20 minutes, there’s a river right next door.

Oh, the other thing is rivers. Like, if I’m next to a river, that flowing water is like my charger battery.

Like, I can pick up on almost anything that, like, I’m like, supercharged.

So running water is like. It’s like if I wanted my abilities to be like, on high, you know, premium, you know, optimum position of everything.

Running water. It’s just like, it’s amazing electrical or circuit for charging.

That ability, for some reason I find, at least for me.

And then you jump the water and you, you, you, you know, you pull yourself off.

Well, one of the things that they do prior to that is calledtype of cactuseremony, ya ou.

They, they prepare peyote tea. I don’t know if you. If you’re familiar with that.

Speaker 2 (shaking head), I’m not.

Speaker 1 You don’t know what that is? Okay, so peyote is a cactus type of plant or type of plant that you use part of it, and they take about like 48 hours to prepare this tea.

But it’s a, It’s a hallucinogenic type of tea, apparently.

But so you drink it, and literally, you have like half a teaspoon.

I mean, it’s very little that you drink. And then you, you know, we went on a. A hike throughout the Grand Canyon. And while we were out hiking, which is funny because I didn’t realize that no one else saw this but myself, I was watching and like, oh, my gosh, look at this white albino donkey that’s behind me, following me.

I’m like. And it had a palm leaf in. In its mouth. I’m like, wow, that’s really amazing. Like, this pure white albino donkey is following me.

He’s got this palm leaf. Like, that’s. Wow. I couldn’t even believe it, you know. Right. And. Well, yeah, I was the only one that saw that. So, you know, who knows where my mind was at? But it was, it was quite a. I don’t know, it was a very spiritual moment.

I felt very. It actually felt. I felt like it was showing me the way to go down this, this treacherous, you know, mountain in the, you know, Grand Canyons, you know, and, and the Havasupai or the Havasupai Indians, That’s who was leading this ceremony. Anyway. That was a really interesting and very spiritual. Very beautiful, enlightening experience as. As far as, like, at that point when you’re under that influence, You know, you feel so connected to Mother Earth and Your ancestors and stuff like that. You feel like they’re guiding you in, you know, teaching you the ways of What, like, you know, what life, what truly living is, you know, like, you know, being, you know, take. Like when. If you go hunting, you don’t. You don’t. You don’t kill the first animal that you see of that species. You wait till you see more than one, because if you only see one, that means that the population is not enough to support your hunting. Right, right. It’s just being mindful. Right? Mindful of, you know, the nature and, you know, what, what you, you know, how much you take is what you’re going to receive.And so, you know, don’t always use all of the animal, always using all the plant or, you know, you know, just being mindful of all that stuff.” 

Her thoughts : 

She sees this as a deeply spiritual and meaningful experience. She describes feeling connected to Mother Earth and to her ancestors, and believes they were guiding her and teaching her ways of living. In particular, she emphasizes ideas of being mindful in nature, such as how and when to use resources, including animals and plants, and living in balance rather than excess.

My thoughts: 

This was, by far, the story that felt the most cultural and spiritual to me compared to the other ghost stories she shared in that session. It also generated the most questions for me. I really enjoyed learning about the Umatilla tribe, and it made me curious to hear more about their habits and ceremonies. Before this, I didn’t know anything about the tribe, the sweat lodge ceremony, or the Havasupai who led it.

I found myself wondering about the structure and purpose of the ceremony – why they hold it, how often it takes place, and what it is based on. Is it connected to a specific time of year, a need within the tribe, or some kind of celebration? I was also curious about the physical experience itself: how many people are inside the hut, whether there are multiple huts, and if everyone participates in the hike together afterward. Even small details stood out to me, like the peyote tea – why it takes 48 hours to prepare and how it is actually made.

I was especially interested in the moment where she saw the white albino donkey. Within her belief system, that kind of animal can be understood as sacred or spiritual, which made the moment feel significant. The fact that it was carrying a palm leaf in its mouth made me think it could be interpreted as a kind of message, especially since that is not something I would expect to see in that environment. I even tried to look into what a white donkey might symbolize, and found that in different belief systems it can represent ideas like peace, wisdom, or guidance.

Overall, this story felt like a combination of a ghost encounter (the donkey) along with a spiritual experience shaped by cultural beliefs and ritual.

Dual spirit possession. Huh?

Age: 15
Performance Date: 04/17/2026

Context: 

I am an international student in the US. When I went back to India for my winter break, I took a trip to Rajasthan – the western part of the country – with my family. One night, my cousins and I decided to talk about our experiences with ghosts at 2 am. We turned the lights off, sat in a circle, and turned on our touches. One cousin of mine, let’s call her T for the story, volunteered to share her frightening experiences of being possessed by a spirit(S).

The Story:

One day, T was coming back home from school when she unknowingly stepped on a piece of lime on the road. Eatery items in India tend to have an association with black magic, where the magician uses food, i.e., items like sweets, lime, or fruits and leaves them on the roads or distributes them in temples, taking advantage of the naive nature of people as they unknowingly eat the possessed food item, considering it a gift of god.

However, in her case, T stepped on one instead of eating it. Coming back home, she was normal. But it didn’t take long for her to be abnormal. She started liking to sit in the dark, would randomly laugh, and would look at the right side of her bed, and would cry for no reason. 

As the days passed, no one in her family really noticed what was happening. One day, she was having lunch when she randomly picked up her lunch plate and took it out of the house. She walked towards the spot where she stepped on the lime. By then, her mom was out of the kitchen and realized that T was not there. Her mom, in search of her, came out of the house and shouted out loud. “Hey T, what are you doing?” This sharp sound broke her trance, but made her mom realize that something was not right with her. 

After a few days of repeated unusual things that T did, it made her mom certain that her daughter was possessed. She fortunately knew a priest, who previously had experience dealing with necromancy. When the priest paid a visit to their house, he gave a piece of paper with spiritual chants written on it, and asked T to read it for a week and then mix that piece of paper in a glass of water and drink it at the end of the week. T also mentioned that after mixing that paper, the glass of water would turn orange. Before that priest left the house, he told T, “Be strong, someone is fighting for you as long as you let them”.

Days passed, and the priest paid weekly visits. Even though the hallucinations were declining, they weren’t completely gone. Suddenly, one day, T stopped sleeping in her room, saying that the right side of the bed feels inclined, and I feel there is a gush of wind hitting my face whenever I toss towards that side.

After a couple of days, she began waking up in places she didn’t remember going to, and her mother started staying awake at night. One evening, T quietly started walking towards the balcony. As T walked closer to the edge of the balcony, her body refused to move, as if two magnets with the same polarity were kept head-on. It felt like something was pulling her forward and holding her back at the same time. That night, when the priest returned, he explained that  “There are two spirits. One is trying to take her. The other is trying to protect her.”

Over the next few days, the rituals became more intense. T read more chants and the priest performed cleansing prayers in the house. And the weird behavior slowly began to fade away. One fine day, it was the end of the week, when T began mixing the piece of paper in water, ready to drink, but it did not turn orange. After that day, everything stopped.

Their Thoughts: 

T says that it was a horrifying experience for her. She also believes that this made her more spiritual. Not only this, she initially was a bit reluctant to share this story with others, but now she has mustered the courage to talk about it among her peers, and feels “it is just cool, thankfully I have no spirit now”.

My Thoughts: When T began narrating the story, I initially was a bit skeptical about whether the story was true or not. Over the course of the trip, I spoke to her mom to ask if something like this really happened, and to my surprise, it really did. More so, it was scary for me too, as I used to hear legends about people being possessed by back magic, but I never believed them. This time, when it happened to T, I now feel black magic exists, and I try to be vigilant of my surroundings when walking on the road or when eating food given by people.

The mountain ghost! Trip which turned haunted

Age: 75
Performance Date: 04/10/2026

Context: My grandfather did his K-12 studies at a boarding school in India. His school was in a remote location, and it was built on top of a hill. Right below the hill was a graveyard, and a famous legend had its way around campus – whenever children of his school would go out for an excursion and return late at night, they’d see a woman with a veil selling corn, late at night, by the roadside along the mountainous curves. As his school was on top of a hill, people had to be careful when driving around the corners of the mountain, especially at night, to avoid accidents. Residents would call this ghost the “corn seller” as she and her family had died due to an accident on this road. The story is that one day, a group of young boys was driving a super-fast car on these narrow roads. Suddenly, they saw a truck coming from the front. As there was no time for them to brake, the boys took a sharp turn towards the side to save themselves, but unfortunately ran over the corn seller’s canopy, killing her and her two-year-old child.

Story: Let us call my grander D for the story. His school allowed these excursions only for students in high school. Excursions were two-day-long trips from Saturday morning to Sunday night, and the students would travel during the nighttime to attend school on Monday. D had heard many stories of his seniors spotting this corn seller when coming back to school from the city. This time it was D’s turn.

D, as usual, left campus on Saturday morning. On the way down, he was vigilant to find the corn seller and bust the legend, but to his surprise, there was no canopy or woman selling corn. As his trip came to an end, D told me all his friends were super tired, yet they were trying to scare each other by pretending that they saw the women.  

Suddenly, the bus got a flat tire as they were about to reach the hostel, right after they passed the graveyard. It was around 10 pm, and all the children went silent. However, the bus driver was confident and let D and his friends come out of the bus to help him fix the flat tire. Most of the children were either sleepy or too scared to come out of the bus, but D and a couple of his friends decided to step out and help the driver. 

As the bus driver started to repair the puncture, D did not have anything to do. As he and one of his friends (let’s call him V) started talking to each other, paying almost no attention to the flat tire. Suddenly, they saw a deer. It was not moving, but its eyes shone like a diamond. For some reason, it caught their attention. Being young boys, they wanted to see what it was. D told me, “I was not sure if it was a deer, a dog, or some other wild animal, though the eyes looked like those of a deer.” Without thinking much, D and his friend V moved towards this weird creature.

The headlights from the bus barely reached that part of the jungle/road. As they stood there, both heard a faint voice from behind, “Bhutta le lo” ( which means please buy corn in English). V looked at D and said laughingly, “Did you hear that?” Before D could respond, the voice came again, this time sharper than before, as if the person was much closer. D and V slowly turned their heads for a brief second, and though they saw a faint figure on the other side of the road, they moved towards the bus. 

They were merely 200 meters away from the bus, but when they came back, the driver asked where you guys were and why you were both sweating. Both together said, “Kuch Nahi, we were just checking if we could get a lift, that’s why we went a little forward.”  They both did not share this with anyone at school, but now, when they think about it, they still do not know what exactly it was. Did they see the corn seller, or was it just their mind telling them that you are tired?

Their Thoughts: D brings this story almost every time we have a celebration at our house. He says that this incident made me believe in ghosts, and even since he never dared to be curious about spirits or haunted things in general.  He told me, “I still remember not being able to sleep at night, and the next morning when I met V, he too was in a similar situation.

My thoughts: I think D was tired, but if the story is true, then in my analysis, the ghost was wanted and was there to help people by scaring them to not stay on the road, as it was not safe due to the narrow roads. She was there not to scare people, but in reality to save their lives as they were standing on an accident-prone road.

Ghost or Elf On The Shelf?

Age: 21

This story takes place in a childhood home in San Antonio, Texas, on an early Saturday morning in December. PR was elementary school–aged at the time and asleep in his bed. Suddenly, a knock on the door pulled him out of a deep sleep (not enough to fully wake him, though) so he ignored it and drifted back to sleep.

Then he heard it again: another knock, this time accompanied by a low voice telling him to get up, something like, “Hey, PR, wake up.” Assuming it was his dad, who followed a strict morning routine, PR figured that a knock so early on a Saturday must mean something important. So he put on his slippers and bathrobe and headed downstairs.

Confused, he looked for his dad but couldn’t find him anywhere. A family friend from Spain had been staying with them and was already awake due to the time difference. PR asked if he had seen or heard his dad, but the friend replied, “No, he hasn’t been here.”

Still puzzled, PR went back upstairs to check his parents’ bedroom…only to find both of them fast asleep, completely out. Despite the unexplained knock, he returned to his room. Since it was the Christmas season and his family had an Elf on the Shelf that supposedly moved around every night, he blamed it on the elf.

“As a kid, I immediately thought, ‘Oh, it was the Elf on the Shelf. He was playing a prank on me.’ That made perfect sense to me then.”

Years later, however, PR looked back on the experience and had a realization: “Wait…that wasn’t the elf.” It suddenly struck him how strange the whole event really was. It felt almost ghostly. He tried to rationalize it, but pointed out that neither his dad nor the family friend were the type to knock and then rush back to bed. They were both very routine-oriented.

It left him wondering whether it had been something paranormal or simply a half-dreaming state. PR considers himself a rational thinker and believes there must be a logical explanation. He suggests it could have been a groggy hallucination, though he isn’t entirely sure. Regardless, it felt very real, very strange, and has stayed with him ever since.

He also noted that there was no known history of haunting in the house. It was relatively new, built in the late 1980s or early 1990s, and only one other family had lived there before, who they didn’t know. His parents once mentioned that a young daughter had previously occupied his room, but aside from that, nothing else unusual or paranormal ever occurred in the house.

Although PR believes it’s unlikely that his dad or the guest could have knocked, it’s still possible. Another explanation could be that a combination of ordinary noises woke him, and his half-asleep brain filled in the sound of his father’s voice. It may have been a mix of both.

The story reflects common elements found in ghost narratives, particularly the motif of poltergeist activity. A “noisy ghost” associated with domestic spaces. It also involves a child, which is significant, as children are often portrayed as more sensitive or connected to the spirit world. Additionally, the timing is notable: the December holiday season, when routines are disrupted, traditions are heightened, and households feel different than usual. Early Saturday morning, a time typically reserved for uninterrupted rest, adds to the sense of disorientation.

All of these factors could have placed PR in an unusual mental state, where strange occurrences felt more believable, or where his mind was more likely to interpret ambiguous stimuli as something extraordinary.

The University Of Vermont Hallway Ghost

Age: 19

The story takes place at the University of Vermont, in an old dorm, on an October night at exactly 3 a.m. LL got up to use the communal bathroom. When she stepped into the hallway, she immediately noticed a mysterious girl standing just past the bathroom. The girl had long blond hair hanging in front of her face, was facing away from LL, and was wrapped in a towel as if she had just stepped out of the shower. LL thought it was an odd time for anyone to be showering, and the sight gave her an immediate gut feeling that something was off. It was “creepy,” she said.

After finishing in the bathroom, LL stepped back into the hallway, and the same girl was still there, standing in the exact same spot, still facing away from her. The girl hadn’t moved at all. Feeling increasingly unsettled, LL began walking quickly back toward her room. Suddenly, she heard footsteps behind her, growing faster as if the girl were following her. LL sped up, practically running, until she reached her door. She said she was relieved her roommate was inside so she didn’t have to return to an empty room.

LL emphasized that she had “never seen her before” that night and never saw her anywhere on campus afterward. When asked what the figure might have been if not a ghost, she said, “Maybe she was hooking up and then she went to take a shower… or really drunk and trying to scare me.” She also mentioned that she never saw the girl’s face…only the long blond hair and the towel.

When asked about the dorm’s history, LL explained that she lived in the worst dorm on campus and that the university itself was pretty old, so she’s “sure somebody has died in it before.” The combination of the hour, the setting, and the strange stillness of the girl left LL genuinely shaken by the experience.

I agree with LL. On a college campus…where people are experimenting with drugs and alcohol, keeping unusual hours, and living with strangers for the first time…it’s plausible that this was just a bizarre coincidence. The girl may have been standing there in a daze, unaware that her presence could be interpreted as unsettling.

There’s also the liminality of college dorms to consider. They’re your home, but not quite. They’re spaces layered with the histories of countless past students, full of stories you’ll never know. New experiences happen constantly, often before you have the framework to understand them. In an environment like that, the mind is primed to fill in the unexplained with occult or supernatural interpretations, especially when something feels off.

The timing only heightens this effect. It was October, when people are already steeped in horror imagery and Halloween atmosphere. It was 3 a.m., a disorienting hour when you’re groggy, alone, and hyper-aware of everything. In that context, encountering a silent, unfamiliar girl in a towel becomes more frightening than it might be in daylight. LL’s reaction makes sense: the setting, the hour, and the ambiguity of the moment all worked together to make an ordinary situation feel paranormal.