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.

A Great Weekend Past and a Look Towards Mabon

Last weekend was the Seattle Esoteric Book Conference which I visited with some good friends from the Grey School.  The conference itself was a bit expensive for my wallet so I decided to save my hard-earned for the vendor room, rather than going to the workshops.  I have never seen so many small press occult publishers in one room before.  It was really neat to see so many wonderful rare and antique editions, some of familiar works (1st edition Drawing Down the Moon!) and some bizarre things that I've never heard of.

A fun bit of public art down at the Seattle Center, next to the Experience Music Project.

 There were a lot of amazing books there, but I must admit it wasn't really my crowd.  I'm a witch and the majority of what I do is intuitive.  Old grimoires and esoteric theory are wonderful bits of color and enrichment, but they don't really inform my practice.  Historical research into how particular magicians did things a hundred years ago is interesting in an anthropological way, but I'll stick to listening to my Gods for figuring out how I'm supposed to best honor them.  Now, my alchemist friend just about lost her biscuit  with all the amazing hard to find alchemical titles they had and I imagine any ceremonial magician would have felt like they'd entered candyland.  I think this conference is a wonderful thing and I'll definitely be back, but probably just for a turn about the room.

After the conference my friends and I went on a ghost tour with the always lovely Jake of Private Eye Tours.  We did the Spirits of Seattle tour, which I've been on before and enjoyed immensely.  Our group was most of the van and pretty much commandeered things.  We were joined by two lovely ladies who didn't seem to mind our outspoken and matter of fact magickal talk and may even pop by the Grey School some time - which would be fab :)

Jake telling us about the spirit of a minister haunting his former church.

All in all it was a wonderful and witchy weekend.  I came home with some interesting grimoires and will eventually have some interesting book reviews for y'all.

Now, Mabon is coming up this week; Sept 22nd at 7:49am pst to be precise. Here in Seattle we're enjoying an odd Indian Summer, with temps in the high 70s to low 80s all week.  I've never welcomed autumn in shorts before and I can only imagine it will be a weird experience.  However, you can tell the seasons are shifting because I'm arriving at work when the stars are still out and I need a coat in the morning.  I think perhaps I'll welcome autumn by making a special batch of applesauce or maybe some nice beeswax candles on Thursday.  I'll have to think about it. 

Haunted Seattle - Spirits of Seattle Ghost Tour

Last Friday I had the great pleasure of going on the Spirits of Seattle Ghost Tour with some good friends of mine.  Unlike a lot of the other ghost tours in town, this tour was done by van rather than on foot.  On the plus side van tours can cover a lot of ground and are climate controlled; on the minus side a tour in a vehicle doesn’t have the same visceral feel of a walking tour where you get to hear the stories while being immersed in the energy of a place (although there were a few stops on the tour where we could get out and really get a feel for things).  The tour was about 2 ½ hours long and ranged all over town, going from Lake Union, through downtown, up to Capitol Hill, and then back downtown again.

The van picked us up at the South end of Lake Union, near the new park, and the tour began with a bit of local history as we drove towards downtown.  Our guide, Jake, was really knew her history and told a decent story.  We were shown several haunted buildings, such as an old public hall turned bar turned recital hall, and told of the various activity reported there.  I must admit, that these were mostly such common haunts that they weren’t particularly engrossing (the activities were the typical shadowy figures, cold spots, odd noises, and residuals of any haunt).  I was much more interested in the activity we’d hear about up on Capitol Hill, as I knew less about that area.  I was not disappointed.’

The first stop of the tour was at a former church up on 16^th and E John (now home to a marketing firm).  We got out of the van and heard how the main church area is haunted by the spirit of a former minster, while the top floors of the rectory are haunted by the spirit of his wife.  We got to walk around the building and enjoy the beautiful stone construction and stained glass.  For anyone with energetic sense, this building was a trip!  You could actually feel the presence of spirits from outside the building.  It was obvious that the former minister was not happy that his beautiful church had been desecrated and turned into something else.  I could also feel the presence of his wife looking out at us from the top floor of the former rectory, but she felt very sad rather than angry.

From there we moved on to Volunteer Park, one of my favorite places on the Hill.  I had known that what is now Lake View Cemetery had been moved from the park over to the lot next door but I hadn’t realized that it was specifically the land that is now the reservoir.  You learn something every day.

The real surprise of the tour was seeing the GAR Cemetery that’s just on the other side of Lake View.  How had I not known that existed?  There’s a whole extra cemetery just North of Lakeview that is the home to the Civil War veterans that settled here in Seattle.  It’s a pretty little cemetery that was alive with energy on the night of the Equinox.  It’s not as big or as impressive as Lake View, but I think this little plot has a lot more ghostly activity, perhaps because everyone buried there was a man of action.

Then we drove back down the hill to downtown.  We passed the Moore Theater and the adjoining building The Josephnian.  Having been there a time or two, I knew the Moore had some ooky energy, but I hadn’t realized that it was haunted (though I should have, as just about all theaters are). 

From there we went past the old Butterworth’s Mortuary (now Kells and a few vacant floors).  I’ve discussed Kells pretty thoroughly in a previous entry so I won’t now.

Overall it was good fun.  This tour covered a lot of ground that I hadn’t known much about and the guide was very knowledgeable and fun.  I must admit that it wasn’t the spookiest tour I’ve been on, being a bit heavier on facts and phenomena than personal accounts and storytelling.  It didn’t help that the other group of friends on the tour with us was a gaggle of giggling drunk girls that pretty much destroyed any hint of atmosphere Jake managed to create.  The company the runs this also does a true crime tour that I definitely want to go on – without the drunk girls in the back.

Haunted Seattle – Pike Place Market

As you’ve probably figured out by now, I love spooky stories.  One of my favorite things to do when I’m travelling and have the time is take ghost and haunted history tours.  (If you ever get the chance to take the New Orleans Vampire Tour, do it!)  However, I’ve never taken any of the haunted tours here in Seattle.  I mean to remedy that, so on Saturday I went with some friends and did a ghost tour of Pike Place Market.

Over the years I’ve been to the market hundreds of times and it’s always packed to the gills with people.  One of the coolest things about taking the ghost tour was that it ran after the market closed for the day.  It was really neat to be able to see the bones of the market without the usual crush of bodies.  The market is beautiful even when it’s empty, but I’m rather partial.

The tour began at the gum wall.  For those of you who haven’t been, there’s a wall in Post Alley where people stick used gum.  It’s disgusting.  Really, really disgusting.  For some reason, that is incomprehensible to me, people think it’s really cool and it’s become a tourist attraction.

At the gum wall the guide told us some interesting stories about the Market Theater and The Alibi Room (supposedly haunted by the market’s founder).  From there we went up to the market proper and heard stories about the ghosts of Princess Angeline, old sailors murdered by “seamstresses,” an eccentric dubbed “Mae West,” and a murderess named Linda Hazard.  We also heard stories about the Post Alley former home of E.R. Butterworths, the city’s first mortuary.  To read these stories in detail I highly recommend reading the book put out by the founder of this tour, Seattle' Market Ghost Stories.

It was a fun and informative tour, not terribly spooky, but fun.  I’d recommend it to anyone coming into town that didn’t already know a lot about the city’s history.  If you’ve got limited time here in town, skip this one and take the Underground Tour, the energy is a lot darker and you’re much more likely to see or experience the paranormal.

I enjoyed this tour because I’ve actually seen ghosts in the market and its surrounding areas.  When I was a teen going down to the market was one of my favorite things to do, and when I was about 14 I saw the ghost of Princess Angeline (daughter of Chief Seattle).  I was down in the bowels of the market, near the magic shop, and saw an old native woman wearing an Indian blanket with piercing blue eyes.  She creeped me out, but I didn’t think much of it until I passed her and turned around only to find she’d disappeared.  My other encounter happened in Kells (an Irish pub/restaurant in the basement of the old mortuary).  I was having lunch with a friend late in the afternoon and we were the only patrons there.  My friend had gotten up and I was alone in a dark corner when I saw a little girl, maybe five or six years old, in an old fashioned dress skip down the center of the room and disappear into a wall.  I’ve eaten there many times since and have never seen her again, though I hope to again someday.