Octagon Hall 2017



So, on our vacation last week for 2017 we decided to go to the famous Octagon Hall in Franklin KY. I hadn't read anything about it at all, only that others had gone there and were doing ghost investigations and seemed to have lots of good EVP's and the like. So we were at our property in KY and decided to head over a few counties to check it out and meet the men who work there and see what all the chatter was about.

The History revealed this information for us:

An antebellum  eight sided three story brick home

In 1847, Andrew Jackson Caldwell laid out the foundation for his new family home. With a desire for distinction, his home would not be a simple structure with four walls like so many others, but an eight sided edifice unique to the region.

Completed in 1859, it would soon become a landmark in the south-central Kentucky area.

~

Well, we found out that Andrew Jackson Caldwell was a Mason and he had the octagon shape in mind for a good reason. Or at least he thought it was a good reason.

We also found that there were civil war soldiers there at one time and that it was a hiding place, a hospital, and a residence all in one.

It's truly a beautiful place that is falling into disrepair as it is a museum of the past and needs finances to reestablish it to it's once wonderful grand glory.

I loved talking with the people we met there and we had a wonderful tour of the home. But, right from the moment I walked into the building I was instantly approached by a strong male figure who was not amongst the living. I commanded him in the name of JESUS not to touch me as I felt him on my left arm and back area, standing very close to me.  He wasn't evil, but very interested in why I was there. I took two steps in and felt a woman on my right, she was also interested in why I had come to the home. I moved into the home a few feet more and could feel the children around me. The home was so active I was amazed. I didn't need an EVP device, these spirits were making themselves known.

I walked through each room in the home touching the wood and bricks and it was as if I could hear the LORD tell me the pain that these walls had seen. The fears were very real and horrifying once. Death was everywhere. It was actually overwhelming. Like it was covering the walls of this ancient structure. Not just human death but spiritual death as well! I sat down and listened to the thoughts that were coming to me.  It was a long and I might add, cold visit, as I pondered each room in the home.

I soon felt compelled to walk outside after an hour or so in the house. As I walked out of the house and down the back stairs I noticed the curator of the museum come out on the porch to smoke a cigarette. He sat down in one of the chairs on the porch, I smiled up at him but went out a few yards more into the back yard and I heard the LORD say to me, "you are standing on fingers, bones" and before the Lord finished speaking with me I heard the curator yell out to me from above, "we found fingers right where you are standing, from a recent dig"! I was amazed and told him what I had just heard from the LORD! He said "yes", "I can see that you are getting verification".  I was then led to the back part of the yard, the curator came down to walk with me, and the curator and I walked the back lot towards a few large trees. I was feeling death very strongly and said I feel that there are people literally buried right here, and he said "yes", "there are graves back here everywhere. It was then that my feet were feeling, portions of bodies and with every step I could feel through my feet what I was standing on. It was gravely strange. I could see as if by radar what I was standing on. I felt like crying it was so sad. I could hear the bones crying from the ground. The pain and the sadness was overwhelming. So many young souls gone. So much blood crying from the ground still after all these years! I shared these thoughts with the curator and he said "yes", there were many amputations done here and many were killed and froze to death on these grounds once. Just then I went up to one of the large trees and laid my hands on the cold bark. There were areas where the bark was ripped away and the smooth skin of the tree was exposed in long segments. It was when I touched this that the LORD spoke again and said, "This tree has seen and felt all that you now feel" I said to the curator this tree was talking to me. He said people were hung from the tree and I could certainly feel it. I then felt warm breezes over my face and hands and saw the burial from a day long ago when the master of the home was buried there. The curator showed me his grave. It was so strange. I was feeling things the curator was confirming to me.  I was being led by feelings in my hands and feet and the curator verified everything I experienced. I saw the death in my minds eye of the wife and sorrow all over her. These had been lonely, strange and hard times for these people in these graves. Many young children were present as well. They had all died so early in life and the deaths were very sad. The children here knew little hope! Their lives were not royal or happy. Bitterness kept coming up to me from the ground.

I walked briefly into the slave shack and could not bear the pain and sorrow from this structure. It was fear based and horribly sad. Angry and desperate feelings. I exited immediately. It was as if I walked into a tornado of negative emotions in that shack. I could not stand there as my heart was too heavy. The death and sadness was overwhelming!

I briefly visited the summer kitchen shack and in there it was simply empty. As if no one wanted to be in it. I thought that very strange. It was a step back in time to see all that these women had to do just to prepare one meal! It was an all day ordeal feeding family back in those days.

I went back into the home again and went into the basement now. Touching the walls as I went down the steps, 13 of them actually on the final decent. There was a feeling of confusion, anger, resentment, and grief all over the lower level. It was so thick in the air. Anger was paramount, I was sure. I did not however feel anything focused on me. They (the spirits there) wanted me to know they knew in this life they had made many wrong choices, spirits were everywhere! The voices were coming so fast to me I felt like plugging my ears. These spirits were full of regret! That is where their anger lay, yet they knew it was there own doing their own choices that made them feel this way. As if they were saying we blame only ourselves. There was a strange peace in that to me. Very strange. I know that while we are here in the Land of the Living we are all responsible for the choices we make. Once we cross over to the realm of the dead we have already written our story. It is then finished. Our lives become a tale to be told. No changes can be made. It is History. Yes, HIS story then. The LORD alone keeps the records of our lives. Weather we choose to believe it or not.

I have seen how the angelic realm writes the book of "Teri" or "Kevin" or "You". It is done with extreme caution and perfection! The heavenly messengers keep account of all of us. It's truly amazing to see. I saw this in the 70's while the LORD showed me the process one night in a vision. It was beautiful! Angels appear to us as people while we are alive and we have no clue while we are here in the Land of the Living that they are actually angels, however once we act this way or that, it is documented, what we say and do here. Thus "our" story is written. We NEVER get away with anything here, EVER! The documentation and the "why" is known from the heart by GOD himself!

This was what I was hearing from the spirits for the moment as I was in the basement of this once beautiful home. Regret and despair from poor choices.  I quickly went to the main floor and into the grand room. The room where the families had lived and spent most of their time in, the meetings were held for the Masons in this grand room, the choices were made for the military maneuvers, once upon a time now gone. I felt the wickedness there.  Vindictive spirits, angry and alone! It was awful! The pain and the despair. I felt after 4 hours in this home I could stand it no more.  I wanted to stay all day and night but it was a very cold 38 degrease that day and I was ready to head to warmth for the evening. As much as I loved being there, I felt I could hear no more!

We thanked the wonderful dedicated curators for a lovely day of validation and friendship there at the great museum. I strongly urge others to go and feel the walls and grounds for yourself! See what might be spoken to you.

The home was full of spiritual conversations and insight. We were very glad we spent the day there. So much can be learned from the past when we open the eyes of our hearts!

 

The Floating Head, Part 3

Well the weather could not have been worse that year. December 1970. I'm stuck in New York, my ship home was not going to sail!  My Mother tells me on the phone, you are on your own young lady! (You see, she never was thrilled that I wanted to go to New York in the first place). She wasn't going to help me with a ticket to get back home. I knew that meant I was staying in the frozen north until I could get the money for a ticket myself.

I don't know why my Mom was so hard on me, It sure was going to change my life to be left in Buffalo! If I had only known then what I know now!

 

This presented a conundrum for me. No where to live, no job and I was getting a little hungry. I asked my new found friend who resembled the floating head from my Florida apparition, if I could stay at his mothers home in Blasdell, as he had mentioned that could be a possibility if things didn't go well with my Mothers phone call. It was looking like just about all I could do. I ended up staying with his Mother for 2 months along with all his siblings as well. It was getting crowded fast. I called this friend by his name but I won't share that name here.  Now, there was no fear whatsoever being around him. He seemed normal, just like any other friend I had ever had. Our friendship turned into a relationship after 3 months, and we got an apartment together.  I was singing for various groups in the Buffalo and Tonawanda areas. I was doing very well. I had done so well in fact I got a call one night from a man who said he had seen me at Hearthstone manor where I sang for a very large group (500) one night and he said, Lena Horn is very sick with a sore throat and can't sing or  make her show tonight, will you sit in for her. I was so blown away, I accepted the job and had a wonderful night singing with a full orchestra. My singing career was doing very well.

I can't say that about my living conditions however.

 

In the apartment my friend and I shared things were starting to get strange.  Very strange!

I kept thinking I was seeing something out of the corner of my eye all the time. It was unnerving. I would hear strange footsteps on the stairs leading into the flat we were renting. I would hear someone talking, but I was the only one home.

One night I came home from work rather late after a night of singing my heart out and I fell asleep immediately. I had a strange and terrifying dream of an old man named "Joe" who previously lived in the apartment we were renting. He was upset that we were there and wanted us to leave he told me. I woke up and saw a shadow hovering over me in the room and screamed out load. My roommate said what happened? I told him about the dream. He laughed it off and went back to bed. The next morning while I was cooking breakfast my roommate was taking a shower. When he was done showering he came to the breakfast table and I ran into the bathroom to brush my teeth. I noticed the mirror had a name written on it, and I was very upset with my roommate as I  confronted him at the breakfast table, "very funny", you had to make fun of me didn't you? He said with a very honest look on his face, "what are you talking about"?  I said, "the name on the mirror in the bathroom". He pushed his chair back and went into the bathroom and he was actually shocked as he saw written in the steam from his shower, the name "Joe". He went white as he saw it and said, I did not put that there. I would not do something like that. I knew you were upset about your dream last night. I promise you I did not write that there!

It was then that I told him for the first time about the floating head and the resemblance to him that it had. I told him how weird things had gotten. He didn't seem to think it could have been him. (I was sure that it was him). But what do you do with something like that?

And now terrifying dreams and voices and sounds?

 

A week later we came home and noticed the rocking chair in the front room was rocking at a steady pace. We both were a bit spooked by that, but tried not to think about it. It had been happening from time to time.  I kept trying to figure it out! I was feeling more and more unhappy being in the flat. But what happened next made me very sure Joe was haunting this apartment.

I had a neighbor who had a young red haired daughter named Shannon, about 7 years old who always smiled at me when I would come and go from the flat.

She always wanted to come up to the apartment and hang out with me. I was actually happy to have her company from time to time.

One day as Shannon was sitting enjoying a cookie at my kitchen table with me she said, "who is the man who lives here with you both"? I said, "What"? She said, she had come over the other day because she thought I was home and said she saw a an old man sitting in the rocker through the keyhole in the front door, she was peeping in. I really got upset and asked her to describe the man, and she did. I didn't let on that I was freaked out by her. She said she has seen him more than once here. I was speechless. I was also terrified! I didn't know how to respond to that, I didn't want to scare her, but I was scared out of my own wits! So I got up from the table and we both left the apartment immediately. I waited outside downstairs all day at the laundry mat until my roomy came home. I explained what the neighbor girl had shared with me. We were both very apprehensive about staying in the apartment much longer. We decided we'd get another flat to rent as soon as we could. This meant breaking the lease and loosing our deposit.

 

I didn't like being alone in the flat for any length of time so I had  Shannon come over more often during the day while my roomy was at work.

Shannon told me this one day as she was looking at my  Florida drivers license laying on the table that she could see my picture starting to move. She went on to say, she saw me in a white car with a young man with shoulder length brown hair, she said  I was driving the car, she told me this as she was starring at my license!

 That was extremely freaky!

She said she could see something dangling from the rearview mirror in this white car. It looked like it was a basket. I absolutely was frightened beyond belief at this point. She was describing my previous boyfriend, and my car, and it's color, as well as the basket woven talisman I had hanging from the rear view mirror.

How could she know that?

The spirit of Joe had possessed this kid and she was speaking to me of things she could not have possibly known!

Here is a little girl sitting in my kitchen telling me she could see all this from looking at my drivers license? The hair was standing up all over my body. I wanted to scream but I didn't know what to scream! Her face was so innocent looking. Her long red hair and big blue eyes, her milky white skin! And she sees all this?

HOW?

It creeped me out! It was so unreal. I asked her to stop. She acted as if nothing was out of order. Again I waited all day  downstairs at the laundry mat until my roommate came home. That was it !

 I wasn't going back into that flat again except to get my things to move! And no more visits from that sweet possessed child!

I found out from another neighbor after asking around about the apartments tenants, that there was an older man who lived in our  flat several years earlier. She said he was a very nice man that kept to himself. He was often seen sitting by the front window in his rocking chair there most of the day. He had in fact died in the apartment and his name was "Joe". The woman said that she felt he died of a broken heart as his wife had passed a few years earlier as well and he lived in the apartment alone.

There is so much we don't understand about this life. I will always look back at this experience as an opportunity to open my mind and accept there is so much more to us as humans than we actually understand. I understand it all now, but back then I was living through the fear of it all.

I am sure that the floating head relationship was NOT for me to indulge in. I made wrong choices and bad judgements living on my own back then at such a young age. Wiser now, I will share that when we are guided away from something, take note of that!

Don't go there! There's a very good reason for it.

Sometimes as with me, it's just not going to go well for you.

And never forget, truth is always stranger than any written fiction!

You Are Loved

Back in 1973 I was just another pretty face in the hippie movement. I was a believer in all things peaceful and groovey. Loved the music and the spirit of the day. Especially my flower braided hair and my comfy jeans with the engraved sayings of Jimi Hendrix I stitched on them. It was a time in my life I smiled a lot.

 

I was searching for something, but I was to young to know what it was. Music guided me at that time like I believe it did so many others. My fear was that music was like a pied piper leading us all into some strange trap. I wanted to understand life and live life well. I watched some friends succumb to drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, strange religions and odd life styles. I watched but never followed. The pressure was there but I saw emptiness at the end of the day. I just didn't want anything controlling my every waking hour or my finances.

 

I found myself alone a lot. I was different. I felt like I was an observer, not part of the crowd. It was desperately lonely, but it was also very peaceful. I was O.K. with it.

 

One afternoon I decided to visit a friend and while there I had an experience with the LORD. It lasted 2 hours at my friends home.  It just happened. No one was talking religion or witnessing to me. It was like the time had come to fruition and it was upon me. Predestined for that very moment in time. 

 

My friend saw what I was experiencing, along with another friend that came to visit as well. I didn't really know who JESUS was but HE wanted me to know who HE was. I wasn't looking for HIM.  HE drew me to HIM.  I later found out HE was with me all along. Showing me the choices in this life that were available for the choosing, if you wanted them.

 

I began a relationship with JESUS that day that turned my life around. I hold fast to HIM still today from that one meeting with HIM.

No one witnessed to me, read scripture to me or shared their salvation message. I didn't go to a church service or have some one hand me a tract. JESUS introduced himself to me

 and I have never been the same.

 

YOU can know HIM as I do. Just as I did. You don't need any invitation to go anywhere or do anything special. HE already knows you and is crazy in love with you.  It's all so simple really. You only have to ask HIM to come into your life. HE will. Then your new relationship with HIM begins. You won't be perfect, your face won't change or many other outwards things. However, your entire spiritual life will be born again. You will have an inheritance instantly that is beyond your widest imagining's. You will live forever securely in HIS presence and peace. 

Life will look different, yet be much the same. What do you have to loose?

 

YOU are already Loved!