St Augustine’s Priory ghost hunt 22nd November 2013
Bilsington, Kent
This was one ghost hunt which I have been looking forward to for some time, because I held a ghost hunt here many years ago and knew of the potential so I was very keen to explore this venue further. We were not disappointed.
I decided to hold all my sessions in the coldest part of the building, the tower. These two rooms also had many “extras” namely deceased animals of some kind which always puts people’s mind at rest!
After forming a séance circle in one of the more interesting rooms I asked the spirit to step forward and we were immediately joined by Maxwell (Max) an RAF Officer from the Second World War who was stationed at St Augustine’s during the war years. Max was a square build, aged in his late 40s or early 50s, about 5’11” in height, short brown curly hair, and he wore a moustache and talked exactly how you would expect an officer in the RAF to sound.
After asking Max to move people in any way he could, he started moving my arms which quickly progressed to moving other people’s arms including Jeff (guest) who rarely feels any movement at our ghost hunts, much to Jeff’s surprise. Various people had their arms moved, chests and stomachs prodded and arms stroked. I then asked if he could push people, which started quickly as well and he was able to push and pull guests and sway them as well as lift their arms above their heads, so much so that some people were standing on their tip toes to reach. We were also pulled downwards by our hands to the floor but this was mostly the people either side of me.
Whilst all this was going on I was aware of another spirit who was standing in the doorway, he was about 17 or 18 years old and from a much earlier period of time but he didn’t really tell me much about himself, just kept laughing at all the strange positions we were pulled into.
After we finished this séance we went upstairs, this is the loft room which has roof beams which are about 5’ from the floor so the majority of people had to duck to walk between them. Standing here many people felt that they were being pushed and swayed. We were not holding hands which each other, just standing alone in the dark, this made the sensation even more scary because there was nothing anyone could see, it was pitch black darkness. The spirit that was responsible for this was called Brian, he was a gardener of the house during the 1950s, who had a long black well trimmed beard and he delighted in himself that he could push and sway people.
After a short break the second group of people joined me in the tower, once again I started the séance in the first two rooms and Max joined us again. He never actually left. This time the movements were much gentler and slower as the people present were too busy talking about other things and not encouraging him to do anything to them. However I was still being moved and the two people either side of me were being manipulated and dragged downwards to the floor. Max seemed obsessed with some of the footwear that the guests were wearing and used my hands to touch and stroke each person’s shoe. During one part of the session I and the people beside me had our hands pulled across the circle and when a guest asked not to be touched I thought I heard a voice say “Sorry”, but no-one else heard this sound and no-one said that they said anything. However because this session wasn’t recorded on video I cannot check to see if this was made by anyone in the room or whether it was a spirit voice.
From here we moved up to attic room and similar sensations were felt by these guests that the first group encountered. However one guest felt very emotional and could sense a female energy, I too saw the female spirit but could not hear what she was saying. This particular guest was crying because of what the female energy was saying and doing. The female energy was crying and saddened by some children. She kept repeating the phrase “what about the children, the poor children”. What this referred to is a mystery but hopefully this information will come to light in the coming weeks. (We have researchers who are looking for more historical information about the Priory, especially from the war years because this information will be freely available shortly).
The third group to the tower rooms have been on several of our ghost hunts and call themselves “The Boo Club” and are very open to spirit which made Max happy as he was very quickly able to move people and our arms and push people against other people and drag others across the room. This was the only session of mine which was recorded on video and Carl (GHE team) who was recording the video had to constantly move because every time he had a good view of what was going on people were being moved and twisted so that Carl didn’t have a good view. The shorter members of the group were lifted by their arms and then suddenly Max decided that he could twist people into very uncomfortable positions. We were moved, twisted, swayed and rocked into extremely painful positions and people who were on the opposite side of the circle to me were somehow now beside me. When Max had finished moving us which took about 5 minutes. It then took us another 10 minutes to figure out how we could untangle ourselves without letting our hands go. Max found this absolutely hilarious as we could not figure out how some people had ended up where they stood and how our hands had become so entwined.
After all this exercise we went upstairs to the loft room and after seeing some of the Second World War graffiti and some of the more modern 1970s graffiti we stood in complete darkness without holding hands. However the same male spirit was present but didn’t move or sway people like he did with the other groups, but many people felt the floor vibrate.
I then decided to tap lightly on one of the beams and asked for Brian to repeat the sound, instantly we heard a similar knocking sound although everyone heard it, we all thought it came from different directions. Tapping several other times, the whole sound (i.e. 3 taps) were not heard, but we did hear a single tap in each response. It seemed the quieter I was able to tap on the beam the more likely Brian was able to copy or repeat the sound. Every time I tapped we all heard a response. As the session was proceeding the responses were getting better, but not louder which was a shame.
Hopefully there will be a next time at this venue that we can explore this further.
During the free time session I joined a group downstairs in part of the cellar/kitchen on a Ouija board. Although I don’t know who the spirit was, he was a recent passing as he uttered the word Zebedee whilst we were using a new addition to our kit, the Spring Ouija board.
I also joined some guests upstairs in the same room as all the pushing had taken place and they were holding a séance, they also had a spirit box (a device that scans the FM radio frequencies in reverse at 100ms) running in the background. During their séance there were many voices including lots of laughing and people’s names (of their group) being called out.
I was able to stand behind the group and ask for the spirit (who wasn’t Max, but all I know is that this spirit smoked a pipe as I could smell it) to push and manipulate people just by pointing at a person behind their backs or by pointing to the person above their heads. This worked extremely well and became very amusing for me because I was able to ask the spirit for something in my head so that no-one knew what was being asked for and a few minutes later the guests that I asked for this activity to happen to occurred.
I also asked for the spirit to do something to everyone at the same time and I also didn’t say this out loud and some people started to move how I had asked and then the spirit made everyone move. I asked for all their hands to be lifted and joined in the centre of the circle and then when everyone was touching hands about shoulder height I asked for the rest of the manoeuvre which occurred very quickly much to the surprise of the guests. Their hands were all lifted above their heads. This is what I call the “Three Musketeers salute” and the guests sarcastically thanked me for this! From my perspective this was very funny as it is not often that I can get the spirit in the room to do what I ask when I am not part of the séance group. However this time this all worked perfectly.
No EVP’s (Electronic Voice Phenomena a.k.a. ghost voices) were recorded throughout the night as it was either too windy or there were periods of rain which made at a lot of noise on the walls and roof. This would have drowned out any noise of a spirit talking.
This was a very enjoyable ghost hunt with a venue that has lots of potential and one which we will hopefully be able to return to in 2014. Many of the guests had a very entertaining and some weird and strange paranormal activity happen to them.
Watch the edited event video at http://www.ghosthuntevents.tv/event-videos.php#clip=930189
Steve
Psychic Medium
Ghost Hunt Events
http://www.ghosthuntevents.co.uk/
