Tag Archives: ghosts

Macbeth Bad Luck

Nationality: British, American, Canadian, Indian
Age: 40
Occupation: Actor, Director, Producer, Teacher, Consultant and Coach (spoken work and performing, arts)
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 27, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Sindhi, Spanish, French

“Everyone that comes to my house who’s at all superstitious claims our house is haunted. Now, I have noticed all kinds of weird stuff in this house over the years. Believe me… I could not disprove it. I could not prove it, but nor could I disprove it., so there’s a feeling that there’s something going on in the house. Now I always maintain that they’re good ghosts, but when we did Macbeth at the house… it seemed like a very rough time doing that play. There’s a huge rumor in the theatre world that if you produce the play Macbeth, it is a nightmare. All kinds of ghosts come out, mess with your projects. You get all kinds of things that could go wrong… it’s scary.

“That has gone on for hundreds of years. It is the one play—Shakespeare—that is considered so heinously evil. Because the—the guy invites a guest over to his house and then kills him to become king. So, it’s considered so—such an evil premise, that we don’t. You, know, it’s something that you, you take very seriously if you’re going to do the play, and… that summer it was a nightmare to do the theatre.”

 

The informant added that you can’t say the name Macbeth in the theatre. He said that instead, you’re to refer to it as “The Scottish Play” (and the king as “The Scottish King” and queen as “The Scottish Queen”). He said that everyone in theatre will tell you this, (so he can’t remember where he originally heard it, but he hears it frequently). The informant follows protocol and uses the title “The Scottish Play.”

A teacher he worked with at Santa Monica College “freaked out” when they said they wanted to produce Macbeth, and she directed them to take themselves outside, spin around three times, and spit over their shoulders. The informant said people are very serious about this.

During his production of Macbeth, he had a tenant that refused to leave and was not paying him rent (she was a friend of the informant), but a lease had been signed for another person to move in. He also had a rough time with the director, who had also threatened a lawsuit against one of the actors and well as against the informant.

I’ve heard of this superstition often throughout school where the play is frequently read in classes and performed by theatre students, but the specificities of this telling of it (the squatting renter and the lawsuit-threatening-director) add to the belief. It’s the little things that individuals add to the larger superstition that make it powerful and give it truth value.

Immaculate Heart Ghost Nun

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student (Fine Arts Major)
Residence: Burbank, CA
Performance Date: April 22, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese, Japanese, Spanish

“So apparently at my school, there’s supposed to be the ghost of some nun, just hanging around… I think it was supposed to be near the auditorium, which was, coincidentally, the center of all school life. The auditorium, is also the gym, so it has all these basketball headboards around it, but we also turn it into the chapel, but it’s also where the plays are held, so it’s like this—the heart of the school, but there’s supposed to be a ghost that inhabits… behind there.

“When I would work on the sets back then, there was this guy, he was about 25 years old, he looked like s stork. There was a guy there, and he would work on the sets of the plays and I would work on them too, and then one day, he just brought it up, saying “yeah, I don’t like to work too late at night, or I have to play loud music,” or something like that because he feels like he’s being watched… He just feels prickles on the back of his neck, or the hairs raise on the back of his neck or something. And then coincidentally, when he mentioned that, my Spanish teacher mentioned that she was really superstitious… she just mentioned that “ah, yea, there was a ghost here and the, the, I talk with the janitors sometimes, and when they were here late at night they feel like they’re being watched from down the hall and they played music don’t want—I guess they just feel like that would protect them somehow from their senses, and they would talk and be superstitious about the ghosts and my friend… umm… from middle school who’s Filipin..a, it seems like always, they, the Filipinos  always have these strange ghost stories, and she would take—she had this picture of us kinda goofing around outside of campus, and there was this sort of silvery figure… this kind of grey figure misting over the… one part of the photo and she would print them out on those regular six by something photos and she was convinced that that was a habit, and she passed them around to I guess my Spanish teacher that actually—the story of how the workers on the campus believed there was a ghost.

“Uh… so I was spooked, for a while—and actually, I remembered it recently, because a mutual acquaintance who goes on lots of dates with people who seem to know my school because he went to our brother school, St. Francis, he just recently texted me and asked me if I knew anything about the Immaculate Heart Ghost because the girl he was recently going out with brought it up too, and she saw some… some nun in the dark corner who smiled at her, and she just thought it was her teacher hanging out in a dark classroom or something like that and she was spooked. So.. I… luckily haven’t seen a ghost because I am easily spooked. And that’s the Immaculate Heart Ghost Nun who was there—but then also I remember that everyone was freaking out when something or another, like this story became popular, and they were looking on the internet, and lo and behold, there were several stories, like ‘ah yea! She inhabits the catwalks in the auditorium and she just hangs around,’ and I don’t remember the back-story about why there was a nun there, but she doesn’t seem to attack people with knives, maybe she just really liked it there, or something.”

 

The informant was informed about this ghost story by her friend, Lucy (who was in the same grade as she), during her senior year at the high school. She remembers her classmates “freaking out” when they discovered that the tale had made its way out of the school itself and into the public domain. There were several stories recounted to her both live (by her classmates and the school staff) as well as online. She was initially skeptical of the veracity of the tales, but she admitted that deep down, in her “animalistic core,” she was spooked and continues to be spooked by it when it’s recounted to her, or when she tells it to other people. She said she was not likely to go up in the catwalks at night, but also added that the ghost was not reputed to be violent, so she was not overly worried about being attacked. She mused that because her school motto was “Women of great heart and right conscience,” the ghost, too must have had a great heart and right conscience. This tale goes against the grain of many ghost stories in that it serves as an example of good behavior, demonstrating that even in death, the women of this high school are respectful and well behaved.

It’s especially fascinating that this story has moved from a very specific and small community to internet because it represents the rapid movement that is often intrinsic to storytelling. This suggests that there is something compelling about this story besides the fact that the nun came from this school that makes it important from a humanistic view. Ghost stories are perhaps so prolific because even people who question the reality of ghosts (such as the informant) find the tales frightening, and take a “better safe than sorry” attitude.

You See Ghosts If You Believe in Them

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student (Fine Arts Major)
Residence: Burbank, CA
Performance Date: April 22, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese, Japanese, Spanish

“You only see ghosts if you believe in them.”

 

The informant was made aware of this belief when she was about seven years old. This was one of several stories she was told by her cousins, who were eight and 12 at the time of the telling. They had passed this on to the informant because they were vouching for it’s validity, and because it had become popular in their school.

The informant lamented that this presented a Catch 22, because she was still developing her position on her belief/disbelief in ghosts, so she scared herself by imagining them bobbing towards her bed at night, forcing her to hide under the covers, (in a way, her this saying became a self-fulfilling prophecy for her). The saying that was meant to scare ended up serving that purpose by causing the informant to scare herself.

This is a good example of why ghost stories are so widely spread in a variety of cultures. Beliefs like this one weight the chances of ghosts as reality in favor of their existence by perpetuating that the consequences for believing otherwise are worse than those of believing mistakenly.

Gravity Hill

Nationality: White
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/23/13
Primary Language: English

“In Chino Hills, there’s a ghost story sort of thing, um, where, uh, we have a lot of hills in Chino Hills and there’s one hill that, um, it’s almost as if it’s like two hills in a row. So there’s like a ‘U’ between the two hills. Um, and there used to be a road that goes up and over them, um, and you kind of go down and then back up, um, and supposedly there was a car accident, um, I don’t even know how long ago, um, where, like, 3 or 4 children ended up dying in the car accident in-between these two hills.  Um, and supposedly, now there’s no longer a road, um, but if there– supposedly if you go in-between with your car and you kind of go down into where the ‘U’ is at the bottom and you set it up so that your car is in neutral, kind of facing upward toward the second hill, um, so that you’re– as if you’re going to go up the second hill, um, and then you put it in neutral and kind of go up slightly, um, supposedly you’re going to go back down… Supposedly the kids’ ghosts, the children’s ghosts, come and push your car back the opposite direction so you go back up the hill backwards, um, and so tons of, like, teenagers try to do this with their cars all the time um and supposedly, I’ve actually had a couple friends that told me it works, um, and everyone flips out, um, because everyone thinks these children’s ghosts come and, like, push your car, um, but in actuality it’s probably just gravity.” Laughs

 

My informant is a former resident of Chino Hills, California. This is a popular legend spread amongst the youth in the area and my informant first heard it from friends her age when she was a young teenager. My informant doesn’t have much patience for ghost stories, but enjoyed sharing the tale anyway. This is a legend that seems to have been around for awhile in the area as the father of another informant I spoke to remembers this story from when he was a teen. This secondary informant refers to the site mentioned in the legend as ‘Gravity Hill’ and adds a new detail: supposedly, when the ghost children are pushing the car up the hill, handprints can be seen on the windshield.

The Gravity Hill story is not unique to Chino Hills. Reportedly, there are several haunted hills throughout Southern California and, likely, the rest of the country. It’s an urban legend that is adapted for whatever area in which the story is told.

Haunted House in Hesperia

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/28/13
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish, Japanese

“This one story that happened to my, uh, my two cousins, on my dad’s side of the family, Alicia and Carina. They are very, very, uh, I guess you could say—very easily susceptible to spirit—spiritual, supernatural occurrences. Like, they’re just a magnet to that shit. It’s just, since they were young, that’s how it’s been, you know. It’s kind of, uh, within my own family it’s kind of, we just kind of accept it for what it is. Like, shit, it happens. Um, so they live in Hesperia now. But when they were little girls, they moved into the house they are in now. And they got it for super cheap because they realized, like, after, uh, a little boy passed away, um, in the tub. His mom left to go grocery shopping, like, really quick just to get something and he was, uh, I think he had Down Syndrome, and he passed away. You know this actually happened, like, this is actually, like, a true story: he passed away. Um. So when they got the house there was some furniture some stuff left behind. Uh, and in my cousin’s room there was this doll. This doll, it was just there, you know. And my uncle says like, ‘Oh, I’ll keep this for Carina.’ So once they start moving in, this one night, my uncle and aunt told me that Carina just, they just hear Carina scream. At the top of her lungs, just scream. And they open the door and she’s just, she’s just crying. And they’re like, ‘What’s wrong? What’s wrong?’ ‘The doll was staring at me, was like, looking right at me’ And they’re like, ‘What?’ (scoffs) Like, ‘Oh my God, what are you talking about?’ Like, ‘Just stop. Go to sleep,’ you know? And this, this occurred like throughout a few weeks and almost every night, like, Carina would just, she had, like, no sleep because she would always claim that the doll would, at night, like, stand up and look at her and laugh. And she, her parents didn’t believe her. So this one time, my uncle was just so fed up with it, like, ‘Look, this is not real. You need to stop.’ Like, ‘You’re imagining things,’ you know? They got her a night-light, all this shit. So my aunt put the doll with all the other dolls in this little chest and put—just there, like, he’s not gonna get out, like, relax he’s in there you’re fine. That night, my aunt told me, when she went into the room all the fucking dolls, like, the thing was open and everything was scattered. And the doll was just, like, there. Like just, uuuhhh, just kind of there. Like, looking, like, at the doorway. And my aunt looked at my cousin. And she’s like, ‘Wait, why’d you make this mess?’ She’s like, ‘I didn’t do it. This wasn’t me I didn’t do it.’ And she asked my cousin, like Alicia, my little cousin Alicia,  ‘Alicia’s not—like, she wasn’t even here she was with my grandma.’ So like what the fuck? And my aunt was just, like, you’re being stupid, like, you did this shit. And, uh, this one time my aunt was vacuuming the living room and, uh, they’re have a, like, I guess you could say, like, somewhat of a poltergeist, like, they’ve experience the shit where you see the chairs, like, stacked up Like that’s happened to them. Like, they’ve seen it. And, so from that, they had a priest come to the house and like legitly bless it. You know. Um, so maybe for awhile, things started, like, things were completely fine. And it was’t until there was a barbeque at, they had a barbeque at their house. And my uncle decided, ‘you know what? Fuck it. I’m gonna—we’re gonna take this doll, and I’m just gonna throw it away, like, it’s done.’ You know, uh, so when people were coming, my grandpa at the time, he saw, he saw, like, this doll, perfectly fine on the trash can and he’s, like, why are they gonna throw this away? So he brought it back into the house. And you know from the perspective of everyone who’s outside, you just see a bunch of kids running out of the—outside in the back yard just running, just screaming, like ‘OH MY GOD!’ and my aunt was like what’s wrong, like, what happened? What’s wrong? What’s wrong?’ They said that—these are like little kids, a like my cousins, who said that, they claim that they saw the doll run across the room like the hallway.  And they all just ran out, screaming. It’s just… what the fuck? So from that they just, they just burned the doll, they got rid of it. They legitly just got rid of it. Um but I could like vouch for that. My brother, like, my oldest brother who’s 25, 26 now, he was a kid when that happened, like he was one of the kids that was there. You know. Like for him, it’s just, like, “Dude, I have no idea what the fuck happened. It was just there.” You know, but, yeah… just shit like that… like, supernatural shit.

“But the way that my family sees it, well my dad, my dad’s like her (the secondary informant) dad, like, “That’s bullshit. Like you don’t pay attention to it. You know, you don give it energy, like it feeds off energy, like it needs to be noticed, you know so if you make that conscious decision, like okay I see it,  I’m gonna acknowledge it, it’s just (snaps), it’s gonna keep coming back, it’s gonna keep coming to you, you know. But for some—like my grandmother, and just this—but it’s mostly with older generations—”

Secondary informant: “They just love it! They just dig it.”

Primary informant: “It’s like older generations, you know, it’s an older generations thing.”

My informant is of Mexican ancestry and his family is very open to the idea of the supernatural. He says that his family frequently shares stories about ghosts, hauntings, and unexplainable occurrences. Although he is more skeptical than his older relatives, the older women are especially into it, he still enjoys sharing the stories he’s heard. He can’t help but believe that there’s at least some truth to what his family members are telling him.

Stories about dolls who are haunted or possessed are very popular within the fantastic genre of literature, art, and film.  My informant’s tale is a unique one and tells of something supernatural experienced by his relatives.