Objects can retain energy of people that loved them or valued them. Sometimes ghosts will attach themselves to objects and it takes the emotional energy of a living person to "activate" or power up the ghost.
To learn more about ghosts and spirits, check out my book "Lessons Learned from Talking to the Dead."(see end of story for book summary)
"Haunted Dolls Are A Thing, And They're Not Cheap, Either"
ARTICLE SOURCE: Link to "Haunted Dollls story"
Originally published March 15, 2015
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE STORY: http://www.npr.org/player-Dolls
Some childhood symbols straddle the line between adorable and terrifying. Like clowns. Or Furbys.
But some dolls fit the category, with spooky eyes that seem to move and the porcelain pallor. They're not all Chucky, but some of them just don't seem quite right.
Listener Anne McLaughlin grew up with a cabinet full of dolls — a pretty dancer doll, a set of wooden nesting dolls. But one, she says, stood out.
"One of the dolls in the cabinet was absolutely terrifying," she says. "Very tall, thin doll, and her face was not a doll face. It was a grown woman, so she didn't have big eyes she didn't have a smile. She had tiny little eyes. She always looked like she stepped out of one of those New Orleans ghost stories."
The lady doll was also a music box, and spun slowly to music when wound. The doll gave Anne the creeps.
So one night, when she was about 10, McLaughlin thought, " 'I'm going to take her out of the cabinet just to prove that I'm not scared of this doll,' even though I was very scared of the doll."
So she wound her up, left her on the bedside table and walked away. Suddenly there was a crash.
"And right when I turned around, she had just walked to the side of the bedside table, and fallen to the floor with a big crash, " McLaughlin can't even finish her sentence. "I went and slept with my parents."
A screenshot of an eBay listing shows "Claire," a doll that, according to the seller, is haunted by a spirit. The current price: $75.00
"I was really sure to put her in the cabinet facing away from me ... so that she couldn't watch me," she remembers.
Many listeners have their own haunted-doll memories. That's not surprising, considering that haunted dolls are big business on sites like eBay and Etsy.
Jak Hutchcraft, who wrote about the phenomenon for Vice.com, says he stumbled upon the trade one night when he was surfing around the "Everything Else" section of eBay.
"There was an advert for something which was a sadistic, perverted, haunted doll," Hutchcraft says. "It was this little, menacing-looking sort of troll."
Intrigued, he noted that the bids kept going up, with 10 people in the running. That doll that looked like a possessed little troll sold for more than $1,400.
Hutchcraft did some reporting to find out why anyone would want a haunted doll — let alone pay for one.
"Some people want to connect solely with the spirit," he explains. "Some people buy them just for the doll because they're doll collectors and the spirited aspect of it is just a secondary thing. I thought it was baffling, really, because I can look past the ghost as long as it's a cute doll."
Hutchcraft met with a woman who is a major player in the world of haunted dolls, and he found to his surprise that he kind of liked her. He started out as a skeptic, but ultimately came to appreciate this seemingly bizarre subculture.
But when it comes to owning a haunted doll?
"I thought about it," he says. "But the thing is, the more it went on, the more it took over my life for about a year really ... and then I started to think, 'Will my brain trick me into thinking it is haunted? Or something will happen when I get it. And to be honest, I didn't have the money to fork out — and I was a little bit scared!"
Many years after McLaughlin's scary doll "walked" off the table, she got the courage to take the doll out of the cabinet again. She found, upon closer examination, that the music box was off balance — probably the reason the doll fell to the floor.
But I gotta admit, I liked the story better when the doll was possessed.
*********************************************************************
SUMMARY for LESSONS LEARNED: Follow
Rob on a treasure-hunt-style journey in Virginia as he and others try
to explain what appear to be random and obscure words, signs and symbols
from a spirit, that all wind up being intensely personal to the
spirit.Explore the science behind how they communicate. Learn how to
receive their messages, where they appear, and important messages in how
to live your life. Rob takes you into cemeteries, battlefields, and
historic places. You’ll see what happens to victims of suicide and
murders, and how infants and animals pass messages to the living. Featuring: Inspired Ghost Tracking and mediums Barb Mallon, Troy Cline and Ruth Larkin. Amazon Author Page: amazon.com/author/robgutro
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