Tag Archives: Superstition

The Exorcism

The informant told me this story in person, and said that her great great grandmother in Italy was praying in the upper level of the church, when the priest of the church and a little girl’s family came in to perform an exorcism on the little girl. The priest of the church even brought in an elder, higher ranked priest to help perform the exorcism. They said that it was a battle, and that the high-rank priest was exhausted psychologically and physically after.

ANALYSIS: The informant’s story has been passed down throughout her family and seen as a legend in the family, and believed to be true. This story falls in the category of being a ghost story, as well as family lore. This lore also has religious context, as the informant’s family is Catholic.

AGE: 24
Date: February 15th
Language: English
Nationality: Italian/White
Occupation: Student, Musician
Primary Language: English
Residence: Los Angeles

The Ghost Hand Story

The informant was sitting in his room with his siblings in San Diego, and was extremely ill in bed. He was praying that someone would take his pain away, and he suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder, which he says was a ghost that was haunting the house. He then started to feel better, and the family swears that there was a ghost in the room.

Date: February 21, 2025

Language: English

Nationality: White/Hispanic

Occupation: Father/Lawyer

Primary Language: English

Residence: California

Analysis: The informant lived in a very old house, which had lots of ghost stories that had been passed down from previous owners, with new stories being made within the informant’s family as they experienced new strange occurrences. This folklore is shared within the family to scare the new generations and also bond people together.

The Haunted Storage Space

The informant lived in a historical San Diego home, which had many stories about the prior owners. He told me this story verbally in person, and said that the owners reported strange activities in the downstairs closet of the home. There was a secret door inside the closet, which opens up to a small dark storage space. When the informant was a child, he and his siblings would light candles to see if anything happened. One day, the candle blew out by itself and he and his siblings ran away, and never went inside of the closet again. This story is now told in the family, and scary ghosts stories were passed down about what blew out the candle.

Age: 60

Date: February 24th 2025

Language: English

Nationality: White/Hispanic

Occupation: Lawyer, Father

Primary Language: English

Residence: California

Analysis: This story falls into the category of ghost-lore, and this story was shared within the informant’s family and among the siblings. It reinforces the belief of ghosts and has been used to scare different family members. This story has been passed down to younger generations, and the new owners of the house are also aware of strange occurrences.

The UCLA Fountain Legend

Students at UCLA have a tradition where they touch their hands into the inverted fountain on campus, which is twelve feet wide and five feet deep, during their freshman orientation. The informant told me about this tradition over a phone call, and it said that if you touch your hand into it again before you graduate, you will be cursed to spend another quarter at UCLA and graduate late. This story has been passed down from the older generations of grades to the current generation. The informant is a student at UCLA in his junior year, and he is apart of a fraternity. He heard this legend from an older student at his fraternity.

AGE: 21

DATE: February 18th

Language: English

Nationality: White

Occupation: Student

Residence: UCLA

ANALYSIS: I believe that this story was made to both bond students together during orientation to participate in a tradition that is specific to the campus and UCLA, and to also act as a superstition that can scare the freshman into not touching the fountain. It is apart of the culture at UCLA, and the story is also a way for the students to make a memory during orientation when it is their turn to touch the fountain, as well as when they graduate and get to partake in the tradition again before they leave.

The Office Building Ghost

Age: 65

Story: This is a crazy story that happened to me in December that I still think about everytime I go to work. I think it was like December 10th or 11th or something like that and I was working in the homebase office of my job, which I never go to, and it seems like for good reason. 

Well this day, I got to work and my manager was acting a little odd. She seemed a little antsy, a little jerky, but I brushed it off as an off day. A few hours go by and she just is not letting up. She’s squirming in her chair, sighing, huffing and puffing… and so finally I go “Hey, is everything okay?” And my manager assures me everything is fine and that she just needs to take a breath outside. So, she gets up, and as she’s walking out the door, a box of tissues on her desk goes FLYING off. 

Now, I do not believe in ghosts, I never have, I don’t think I ever will, but I swear on my life that this box of tissues, on its own, went flying off my boss’ desk and onto the floor. 

So, my boss turns around and shrieks “DID YOU SEE THAT?” and of course I did but I said “Oh the vent must be turned up too high.” But, I knew damn well that there was no vent… there must’ve been a spirit or something in that office, but I didn’t want to freak her out more than she was that day. 

My boss then steps outside finally, I pick up the tissue box, and as I do, a tissue is YANKED out of the box and onto the floor … and again, I swear I did not touch the tissue. It flew out of that box and I felt a force. That’s when I went running outside to grab my boss, and she did not want to come back into that room…so instead she went home, grabbed sage, and we burned sage in the room to rid it of the spirits there. 

To this day, that is the craziest thing that’s ever happened to me. I don’t know if I believe in ghosts, but I do believe that happened.

Analysis: This personal ghost story reveals how supernatural beliefs and folk narratives continue to shape how we interpret unexplainable events, even in professional settings. What makes this story so compelling is the dichotomy between skepticism and belief. My friend begins by emphasizing that they don’t believe in ghosts, but what they experienced at work that day has possible caused them to reconsider, at least for a little bit. This is a common feature in ghost lore: even skeptics can become believers when faced with something they can’t logically explain. It also highlights how ghost stories often originate from direct personal experience, evolving into contemporary folklore through retellings and shared memory.

The role of the sage burning at the end of the story also speaks to the blending of traditional folk practices with modern life. Burning sage is a ritual drawn from spiritual traditions, and in this case, it’s used as a way to cleanse a space of any hauntings, demons, or spirits, which is something we see across many cultures. The fact that this person and their boss felt compelled to perform a ritual to fight back at a spirit shows how folklore is still deeply tied into our behavior, even if we don’t know it.