Many years ago when I was a around 12 years old, I purchased a shoebox full of stamps at yard sale. After examining the contents, I noticed old letters, invitations, railway tickets and magazine clippings also. All the letters and such were dated in the 1800's.
A while back I began to organize some of the contents , placing some items in photo albums and and envelopes. Then placing all the items in a wooden container where the items have been now for years.
Ever since I've owned these items strange noises and weird happenings have been taking place around the home. The one incidence that bothers me the most is nearly every night I'm awakened by scratching noises and light tapping noised coming from this wooden box that contain the items. Ive done audio recordings for a couple nights in a row and have actually recorded the scratching sounds, but anyone can make noises on an audio recorder.
I have even taken the items out of the box and still heard the sounds near the box and in the area of the letters and such. The box was given to me a couple years ago and the letters many years before, two totally unrelated objects.

Do you think its possible that letters and invitations can be haunted and what are the chances that both unrelated items be haunted? Could the hauntedness (new word)
rub off onto another object and make it haunted also ?

I will post pics of the box and its contents as soon as I finish this post.

playing devil advocate i would have to say you should prove the paranormal first. (evil laughter ensues)

maybe theres some other cause for the sounds. have you moved the box somewhere else and still gotten the same type of recordings?

[edit on 24-6-2009 by ELECTRICkoolaidZOMBIEtest]

Here are a couple pics of the box that I store the letters and such in. It sits a couple feet from my bed under my telescope.





These are a couple pictures of invitations and a railway ticket to the grand opening of the Crescent Hotel.





A dress maker in Washington D.C.



A Southern Exposition Ticket



and a letter written in a foreign language



I know that just because an object is old doesn't automatically make it haunted. I have moved the box with the items out of the room and I have recorded scratches and popping noises in the room with the box. Then again, it doesn't prove its paranormal, just kinda creepy

You should take the whole lot to an antique dealer and pass the buck to the next guy. Its a win-win situation since you either get rid of the spook and get rich, or get rich and have less stuff lying around.

It's a very nice piece of history and might be valuable but do you want to get rid of it?
If you have done recordings and get noises from the box then take another step.
Maybe you could lay the contents out on a table and videotape/record it for a night or two to see if you get any movement or more noise.

Any way its a pretty cool piece of memorabilia.

There are lots of haunted objects.

Haunted objects don't have to be old.
We once had a haunted doll. It was brand new.
We got it out of the house .... FAST!

Sell the haunted objects and get some $$$.
Put it up for sale on EBAY as haunted.
You'll make more money that way

thanks for the advice everyone above!

To be honest , I sort of enjoy the activity surrounding the items.
I don't think I could ever sell or destroy any of it.
my wife on the other hand thinks I'm crazy for keeping the items and wants me to get rid of all it.

My vote: Haunted.

Spirits can attach themselves to objects they were close to in life.

Unless it's creating some kind of trouble, I wouldn't want to get rid of it either.

I think it's cool. And interesting.

Of course, any hint that it's evil and it would be out the door.

But, uh, I don't know that I would keep it in my bedroom!

Seriously. Evil or no. Not my bedroom.

Interesting. S&F for you.

I believe evil spirits could actually attach their "essence" to objects. When I was eleven years old, my brother brought home a small silver playing piece (like those D&D things) and we had strange things happening up until we discovered the thing in his sock drawer and got rid of it. I personally witnessed the drawer shaking, rumblin', opening and closing itself like it was possessed! It was one of the freakiest things I've ever seen and I'll never forget it. We looked through the drawer when it stopped moving and immediately found the object. It looked like a gargoyle. We threw it out and nothing like that ever happened again. I've since done research on these D&D characters and it seems that the creators actually look thru old witchcraft books and books on demonism to come up with a lot of the creatures names. Scary stuff.

Yes, I definitely agree, that things can become haunted.

When I was a kid I loved to go to the local graveyard and lets say 'borrow' some of the nice glass and marble chippings that used to be used for decoration on the graves.

Lets say, I never stole any of them ever again (after getting rid of the ones I had) and even to this day I apologise before I walk over someone's grave when visiting a cemetary.

I'd be interesting in asking you to do something for me to check on something. My interets are mostly faries and 'gods/daemons', but I'm very well versed in ghosts and creatures too. A lot of correlation exists between certain folklore concerning ghosts and faries, and in both cases a object (in those days mostly a horseshoe or hobnail) made of iron was advised to 'cure' it.

Would you be interested in trying a very simple 'cure' for it for me please? Find some salt (preferably without adulterants like pottassium, iodine or flouride etc) and sprinkle it around the container, in which you'll put all the items making a full, complete circle that is unbroken. At least enough to make a very visible circle that is a few mm thick. Get a glass bowl or small tumbler and fill it 3/4 of the way to the top with cold water and leave it that near the chest too.

Inside the container place the piece of iron, a nail, providing its completely 100% iron, and only iron should suffice.

For completeness, you could include those herbs and flowers that were also apparently used but I'd try those two first if you'd not mind?

The herbs would be easier in terms of leaving them in the container and it'd make the items inside smell fairly nice too. If you'd like a list of the herbs and flowers for removal of spirits, then I can certainly provide, but I'd say try the two 'main' contenders first that are I'm sure, well known even to this day.

Both work in the same way they remove the ability for the spirit to materialise in this 'dimension' for some reason. Magnets also apparently may help (cold iron, as in iron that has not been worked at high temperatures, and this is mostly what old-tymey horseshoes were made from has been recently discovered to be more magnetic than hot-worked iron, or 'new age, cast iron').

Similarly, the water, like the salt is a barrier that cannot be crossed by etheric beings, and even in a glass (not as in like a moat around the chest), it causes the spririt to become fragmented.

Worth a try to keep a very nice momento surely?

Objects supposedly can be haunted also, and possibly your collection is haunted. If all that happens are some noises and you don't feel threatened why not keep them? From what I just read nothing malicious has happened and what a conversation piece!

I would either keep it (out of interest), or I'd sell it to a shop where the next owner will be very random indeed. Because there is something about randomness that enables the will of the spirits-god(s) to act more effectively.

I’d say either you are supposed to help the ghost, or more possibly it's haunted because you're not the intended owner? i.e. you have accidentally disrupted the intended will of the spirit-god.

But I would never destroy it; doing that is a fine way to get seriously (and possibly rightfully?) cursed.

As for ejsaunders detailed advice, I would be very cautious of that too. As I doubt ejsaunders has any real understanding of how what he suggests works, or what the consequences of it working might be.

Let's just say that God-the God's has clearly allowed the item to be haunted as they can basically prevent whatever they like. So it's not necessarily a good idea to disrupt their will, with methods you did not devise, let alone sincerely understand.

The objects are not so much haunted as they are foci for stray energys.

It generally works as the fixated intent of someone, most peoples intentions are generalized and vague, that energy either is directly attached to the object by the person, or may attach due to "sympathy".
This is how a new object becomes "haunted".

Fashioning an object like something which had lots of fixated energy floating around in the world unfulfilled, and naming it after that would make the object a sympathetic object for those energys, and their intentions. Like a battery charging up from stray bubbles of energy in the environment.

Such energys can be expened, and redirected with little effort, if you figure out what their intention is.

You would simply focus some of your own intention upon the object with a specific intention. That intention would include overriding the vaugue intention already on the object and directing it.

If you make the intention something which you can help along, therefore certain to be fulfilled you will get a little boost in your efforts, and the energy will be expended in the process. Leaving the object clean, since it's purpose has been fulfilled.

If you have a negative energy, something destructive, have it help you bust a rusted bolt loose on that engine you are rebuilding.

The more intense the intention you use to override, the less sympathetic you need to be in relation to the original intent of the fixated energy.
You can litterally direct it to shatter a glass object, and the object will explode.

If the object is fashioned after some ancient symbol, if there is still energy around sympathetic to that, then it may be some seriously fixated energy. You should steer clear of that, It will keep recharging, and it may have an extremely precise intent. The more specific the intent, the less likey it is to expend, and the longer it hangs around unfulfilled. So ancient probably spells big trouble.

Sorcery involves intentionally fixating attention upon objects to use them as power storage devices. You most definately would not wish to toy with an sorcerer's power object. If you run across one of them, run, don't walk.

Avoid storing your own energy in objects as an attachment, like I said that is sorcery. You are binding yourself to the object. This can become more permanent than life itself. Most accidental attachments fade fairly rapidly because the intent is vague, and finds a satisfactory outlet eventually. Also most objects are highly impermanent. Therefore a very specific, and intense intent placed upon an object like a diamond, or lump of gold would be a very long term anchoring of the self to physical object which will be around a very long time. That is a really bad idea!



[edit on 28-6-2009 by Cyberbian]