A House Haunted by... Bowls?

Last year, a friend of a friend of mine discovered an abandoned house nearby. He explored it eagerly at first, likely looking to pillage, but soon was driven away from it, as he had discovered that it was haunted. That didn't stop our mutual friend, though. For him and his friends, the apparently-haunted house quickly became a place to hang out and smoke. No matter how many freaky things went down, they just kept coming back. In one incident he recalls, he and some guys were chillin' in the attic, smoking (as always), and he was sitting on the couch there, talking on his cell phone to his (at the time) girlfriend.

Now, in this attic, there are five doors: the entry/exit door, and two doors on the walls on either side. The wall opposite the entrance to the attic has a window on it. Of course, whenever these guys (or me, for that matter) explored the house, they always made sure to close all the doors behind them. So the attic doors were all closed. Anyway, one of them suddenly swings open just a little... Despite being closed firmly. My friend shrugs it off, gets up from the couch, and closes the door. A short time later, the door opens again, this time a little wider. At this point, people are getting freaked out. My friend closes the rebellious door once more, testing it to make sure that it was shut hard and firmly, so it wasn't going anywhere. The door jerks wide open this time, inversely slamming on the wall. There's nothing unexpected inside the little offshoot room.

Any sane person would have left before this point, but not my friend. He closed the door a final time. Some time later, out of nowhere, his phone was plucked from his hand by an invisible force and flung across the room. That was it. Everyone present huddled into a corner, shouting at each other to grab the phone so they could flee. Eventually my friend runs and grabs up his phone, then they all bolt out the door, down the stairs, and out of the house. My friend arrives at his girlfriend's house a short time later, and she is sitting on her porch crying. She apparently thought he was dead. She said that the last thing she heard from the phone was a voice, not my friend's, saying "Get out of my house."

This was far from the only instance of freaky stuff going down at this place. Sometimes, while sitting on the couch in the attic, a few individuals have felt what they described as "a cat jumping off" of their shoulder.

During the trip of my friends just before my first time going there, They, as always, closed all the doors downstairs after exploring the rooms, and went up to the creepy-ass attic to smoke and hang out. When they later came down, they were frightened to find that each of the closed doors had been opened. Most of the doors were old and creaky, yet they had heard not a sound.

Most times, the sound of coins falling and rolling can be heard. Actually, one of my friends received a burn wound from a penny, which struck him hard on the hand. Yes, a burn wound. Another friend's explanation for this was that a spirit had somehow infused it with some form of energy.

My first time going there, on the drive up the treacherous driveway (it's riddled with huge holes), I was freaked out by how the house seemed to just appear all at once, only becoming visible in the headlights when we were around a hundred feet from it. When we approached, the two in the front seats both freaked out at once, about what they described later as a floating, glowing, cat-like creature. The guy in the back with me, and myself, didn't see it. But I have seen similar apparitions on at least two different occasions, so I pretty much believe them.

In this house, there are several bathrooms. They are all creepy as hell, of course, but one of them, what is apparently the main bathroom, has a strange vibe to it. When we entered that bathroom, we would just feel a sense of dread and want to get out of there as soon as possible. Nobody ever went into that bathroom alone. It just feels like something bad is there. We always called it the "bad bathroom", to differentiate from the other bathrooms.

One of my last times going there, just before leaving the attic, JUST as another of my friends reached for the door knob to lead us out, we heard a sharp knock knock... On that very door. We were all petrified. Nobody moved for at least a few minutes. It seemed like I heard breathing from the other side of the door, but I can't be sure, as we were all pretty freaked out. Some people breathe heavily when scared, others hold their breath. After several minutes of mumbling about how we didn't want to die, we carefully opened the door and slowly crept out; there was nothing there. Well, we went to the bottom of the stairs, anyway. But none of us felt safe with an open door behind us. Not in that place. Since I was in the back, they sent me back up to close the door, which we had left open. I couldn't move the door. The guy in front of me had to do it. Anyhow, we cautiously opened the door at the bottom of the staircase, and made our way to the front of the house. The front door was cracked open. What the hell. We didn't care at this point; we threw it open (closing it after) and ran like hell to our vehicles, which were conveniently about half a mile away (we didn't want to get caught with our cars there). Most of us there that night swear there was someone standing at the entrance to the house's creepy driveway, staring at us as we fled. I did feel like something was following me, but there was no way I was looking back there.

These are just a few of the supernatural occurrences that have happened here. I didn't even mention the "creature" in the backyard that frightened my fearless friend into running like hell from the place.

Of course, the main thing that happened in this house was downstairs; we always sat down at the fireplace, usually turning out the lights, and... Clang, stuff would get thrown at us. On a couple of occasions, one of my friends admitted to throwing a few small items himself, but the majority of the things that were hurled, according to their trajectories, came from the opposite side of the room, which was a kitchen. It was either there, or the area beside that, which was where the entrance to the bad bathroom, and the entrance to the garage were. Some of the things that have been thrown were rocks, coins, parts of broken pottery, etc. A rock made a small hole in the wall, as it pelted the wall just a foot or so away from me; I usually sat on the edge of the fireplace. The area where it hit was riddled with more holes with each hit. More recently, it seems as though a frying pan had hit the wall, falling to the floor and leaving a big dent. On another more recent occasion, a circular part of a light fixture flew from off the table that was in the middle of the kitchen area, or the sink behind it, and rolled on the floor, coming to a stop in front of us all. On yet another occasion, something big and metal fell vertically, and hard, into the sink. Of course, there is nothing above the sink except a cabinet. It's baffling, and frightening. Relatively frequently we would hear pinging or rolling coins, sometimes in other rooms.

But at one point, things just stopped happening. It's now just another creepy old house. What happened?

Well, there were these peculiar bowls in the attic floor. One of my friends' friends, a foreigner, said that in his country, those bowls were used to channel or summon your "personal demon" or something like that. I really have no idea what he said, as I didn't hear him say it with my own ears, but it was something to do with the conjuration of a spirit. And he said this long before I ever even went there. The bowls were apparently removed by someone, and the paranormal activity on the property stopped.

Now the house is up for sale. Actually, I think someone has bought it already.

So tell me, ATS, what the hell were those bowls, what were they for, and all that jazz? I really want to know. Just what was going on at that house?

Also, I can give details about the house, if needed. About the structure of the house, items found, dates on papers, photographs, the land outside, etc.

The only way to exercise this home is with Cap'n Crunch. You have to make sure the milk to cereal ratio is right though.... or you'll die.


eta> do you have any pics of these bowls?

Originally posted by Mactire
Do you have any pics of these bowls?

Sadly, no. The few pictures I have are of the outside, and from the outside looking in. I was usually too busy using my phone as a light source to think about taking pictures while in there.

reply to post by Tyger


It could have been this...and it kinda fits:

Banishing Ritual:

Meditate for a few moments on the task ahead; then make a brief invocation to the Goddess and the God, asking for Their Aid and Power in the Work you will do.

Light the white candle in its holder, and charcoal in the censer (or an incense stick may be used instead).

Consecrate Water and Salt in the usual way. Consecrate the water in the bowl in the same manner, but do not add Salt; place this bowl in the center of the room.

Take the consecrated Water, elevate it to North, and say,

“In the name of (Goddess) and (God)
I banish with Water and Earth.”

Sprinkle the Water lightly widdershins around the perimeter of the room.

Bless the incense, then elevate the censer (or incense stick) to North, and say,

“In the name of (Goddess) and (God)
I banish with Fire and Air.”

Cense the perimeter of the room widdershins.

Pagan banishing ritual

So it would seem that the realtor was a "motivated seller".
Oh, so you know it takes three days leaving the water in the center of the room...according to The Book I've read and it'd have to be a bowl in every room so.

reply to post by ldyserenity

Smudge sticks are far more efficient and effective. My step-mother is a Pagan Realtor and she cleanses all of her homes before selling them, and she's one of the top sellers in her firm.

double post

I think the op wants to know how the bowls were used for summoning spirits. Whoever tries to summon things is playing with fire in my opinion. Someone did the bowl ceremony before they started hanging out there i think.

reply to post by Tyger


Hey, I really enjoyed reading your post it seemed very sincere, and creepy. You guys are brave, i probably wouldn't have even gone in there in the first place, ghost rumours or not. If it looks freaky I'm stayin away. As to the bowls your talking about, were they ceramic or copper? I think that perhaps they could have been part of a ritual that was not finished or maybe the bowls were just being moved with a lot of other stuff and it was the removal of the stuff that stopped the haunting, as the spirit might have had some sort of attachment to the objects.

It is really strange though and a shame you guys didn't do more investigating before it got bought up. You could have done your own version of most haunted. So much activity in one house is amazing.

reply to post by Mactire


That is true, but this is actually (in the book I read) a part of a three part cleansing first sage smudge, second protection oils on every window & door, and then the third part the bowl with water in center of each room left alone for 24 hrs. They're all done in steps.

reply to post by ldyserenity


Nah, the bowls and junk were there for months before disappearing. And when they left, the activity stopped. And it was just the bowls in the attic. It was two bowls of different sizes, one inside the other.

Any bowls in the kitchen were probably shattered by the poltergeist. That thing was crazy.

reply to post by transubstantiation


That's correct. The bowls were there long before I even heard about this place, and before my friends started going there. We don't know how they got there.

reply to post by eyesdown


Brave? Maybe. Foolhardy? Definitely. Um, I want to say that they were ceramic. But I never touched them or payed them much attention. I just sat near them. >_> They weren't really important to me until they were gone.

Heh, well, what made us think it was the bowls was the thing that the foreign guy said. I would have taped it if I had a camera. But I'm poor, so.

But yes, I'm very interested in what happened at this place. Maybe someone was playing around with some kind of magic in this place after it was abandoned. Or maybe that's why it was abandoned. From the looks of things, the inhabitants left in a hurry. There were dated papers, and tons of photographs all over the place. It seems that it was abandoned in 2004. But even more than whatever the story behind it is, I want to know about the summoning technique that caused the place to be haunted. I searched the Internet several times, but never found any information that seemed useful.

reply to post by Tyger
Great story Tyger, but you stated you'd drive to atleast 100ft from the house, then later said you parked half a mile away. i'll beleive you though, cos i like a good ghost story. ; ]
As for the bowls, i'd guess they were scrying bowls, there basically just bowls of water used for channeling spirits.

reply to post by neonitus


They were different occasions. Later on in our adventures, we started to think "Hey, what if someone saw our cars here? Oh, snap." So we started parking in a parking lot that was a ways away. Because if we had been caught there with our vehicles, we would have been fined and/or arrested. If we were just on the property (as long as we weren't in the house), all they would be able to do is tell us to leave.

reply to post by Tyger
no problem.
i was just reading something about water scrying, it mentioned dark blue or black bowls were best. what colour where yours?