Book Review: Haunted Asylums, Prisons, and Sanatoriums by Jamie Davis

Any regular reader of this blog knows that I've got a thing for ghosts (it's the whole worshiping death and spending quality time in the underworld thing).  I consume pretty much any and all media I can get my hands on regarding ghosts - whether I expect it to be good or not. 

When I stumbled upon Haunted Asylums, Prisons, and Sanatoriums: Inside Abandoned Institutions for the Crazy, Criminal & Quarantined by Jamie Davis I knew I had to read it.  You see, most ghosts are totally benign and absolutely nothing like the rampaging fright-makers you see on sensationalist paranormal television.  However, the ghosts of criminals, the insane, and the criminally insane are a different story.  I've dealt with an insane ghost and it was terrifying.  I came to this book in the hopes of finding new and interesting information on atypical hauntings, but was disappointed.

Reading the introduction to this book I was immediately put on guard by the author describing her view of ghost hunting as a thrill-seeking activity.  Don't get me wrong, I totally see the appeal of spooking yourself silly in "haunted" places, but lauding it doesn't exactly give me confidence in the veracity of ones stories.  Thankfully, the author is really good about identifying her experiences as only that and doesn't make mountains out of molehills.  No shifting tree branches that are obviously signs of demonic activity!!!! Just honest experiences of being creeped out in exceedingly creepy places.

This books is basically a paranormal tourism guide and it serves that function pretty well.  Each chapter is about a visit the author made to a different paranormal hotspot and contains some basic historical information, the author's experiences while there, and info on how you can visit (many location offer regular tours or Halloween attractions).  It's written in a very matter-of-fact, guidebook style (which is fine, but it's not exactly flowing prose).  I do like that author has a webpage with all of the video, audio, and photos taken at each location so you can look and see for yourself.

This book is fine when the author is talking about the history of the location, but I had some trouble enjoying her descriptions of her personal experiences.  The problem is that the author is clearly an amateur ghost hunter, so she doesn't exactly offer deep insights into the paranormal.  If I want to hear about someone being freaked out by shadows I'll watch it on tv where I can enjoy the jump cuts and the soundtrack can get me invested.  Reading about it just falls flat.  Nothing all that extraordinary happens.  There's really not much in this book that you can't get from surfing the web, though perhaps not quite so conveniently packaged.  This book feels like the writer watched a few seasons of Ghost Hunters and then spent some time cruising paranormal hot spots to see what all the fuss is about.  While there's nothing wrong with that, it's just not the book I wanted to read.

If you're a seasoned ghost hunter or serious paranormal enthusiast, don't bother with this book.  There's just not enough added knowledge or even entertainment value to make it worth the money.  If you're an armchair ghost lover or someone looking to plan a trip to a haunted place then you might enjoy it, but there are better sources out there.

Portland Beyond Bizarre Ghost Tour

Last weekend I headed down to Portland for the uber-fabulous annual Vampire Ball.  My friend and I decided to go down Friday night and enjoy a little more of Portland.  Our favorite way to learn about a new city?  Take a ghost tour of course!  There's no better way to get a quick and entertaining bit of history and culture than a good ghost tour.  We had heard about the Beyond Bizarre Ghost Tour and decided to give it a go.

 The tour began at Old Town Pizza with a discussion of the "Shanghai Tunnels."  If you've ever seen any of the paranormal shows that go to Portland they're always going on about the Shanghai Tunnels.  The story is that the basements of Portland were interconnected so drunkards could be abducted and made to work on ships in the Pacific.  This story makes for great dramatizations, so it's what the tv shows go with.  In truth, the tunnels were made to deal with the periodic flooding of the Willamette River (that bisects the town).  They've been almost completely sealed off since the 70s and now the "tunnels" are about 3-5 foot long cubbies.  Not so spooky.  I appreciate that this was the kind of tour to actually make that sort of clarification rather than going for the easy scare.

Still in the basement of Old Town Pizza, we were all given K2 emf meters and invited into a very dark, earthen floored area.  There was a nice circle of chair for us to sit in as the guide told us stories of happenings in the basement.  I don't remember the stories too well because I was kind of entranced by my friend Rae's K2.  Most people's meters were dead steady with two lights showing - which is normal.  Rae's, however, was pulsing from nothing to three bubbles, up and down, slowly - not so normal.  Rae also felt a cold spot where her meter was.  When I put my meter near hers it would pulse the same way.  The strange part was that once Rae got up, the spot was completely normal again.  So something down there liked her.

From there we went exploring through Chinatown and came across several old nightclubs that are supposed to be haunted by former owners, patrons, and folks who died there.  In the location above (the Roseland I believe) the spirit of a former employee is said to haunt the upper floors.  He was supposedly murdered by his boss when he tried to extort his boss for drug money.  Not the smartest move apparently.

From there we moved to a nicer part of town and went into the fabulous Benson hotel.  This hotel is supposedly haunted by the ghost of several suicides that happened there.  It's said that if you look into the big mirror on the main stairs you might see people or objects in the reflection that won't be there when you turn around.  I didn't notice anything all that unusual, but I'll admit that I didn't look too carefully because mirrors, in general, creep me out - to easily turned into portals for my taste.  We sat up in a little lounge area overlooking the main hall as the guide told us the extremely creepy story of a woman stuck in a telephone switch office with a ghost (the office in question being about five feet from where we sat).  It was creepy.

From there we went over to the old Portland police station, that is now mostly vacant but for one small law office.  This was an extremely creepy place.  Just standing next to the building you could tell that some very nasty things had gone down in there.  Tales of police corruption, crime bosses, and murdered stool pigeons just made it worse.  Although the building itself wasn't as odd as the parking lot just across the street.  In that parking lot I got the very odd sensation that energy of the place was hungry, and I could actually feel it sucking at my legs, drawing my energy down into it.  Needless to say I didn't feel terribly comfortable and didn't want to linger.  Apparently this was the only parking lot in all of Portland where you were guaranteed not to see a homeless person camping out for the night.  I believe it.

From there we went back into the more lively bar district and passed by the original Voodoo Doughnuts location.  Since our guide had a deal with Voodoo we all got a free doughnut without waiting in the gargantuan line.  Hooray for shortcuts :)  There was an interesting haunted theater/strip joint next to Voodoo so we heard our next tale of vice and tragedy while dodging drunks on sugar highs.  The added color actually enhanced the experience.

The next spot we talked about was the Portland Kells.  Now I didn't realize that Kells was a chain - there's also a Kells in Seattle that is also haunted.  The Portland Kells has haunted bathrooms (so haunted that the staff are trained to deal with freaked out patrons) and the Seattle Kells is just all haunted (former mortuary, oh yeah).  So this was quite an interesting site.

Towards the end of the tour we talked about an old saloon and the Oregon Leather Company.  Apparently several of the businesses in the area have reported seeing a large, hairy creature lurking in their basements.  Sasquatch or a really gnarly shadow person?  The world may never know.

All in all it was a very fun tour and I highly recommend it.  So next time you're in Portland, take the late night Beyond Bizarre Ghost Tour.