A Very Haunted Manor House
By Rev. Charlene Hicks
http://www.violetfireenterprises.com/
In 1997 after graduating from Camp Chesterfield as a Spiritual Minister I was given a trip to England to visit friends and attend a week long course in physical mediumship at the Arthur Finlay College in Stansted, England. My sister and I had just finished studying at Camp Chesterfield for the past ten years and had heard about the Arthur Finlay College in England from others who had attended classes there and we wanted to check it out for ourselves. We were warned by our friend Robert who had studied there for several years and was asked to join their teaching staff about the haunted grounds and building. Robert told us that every night from the women’s dorm there would be screaming and not to expect much sleep. He further stated that the women always slept with a light on and it still did not deter the ghosts that haunt the dorm. Robert also told us that as he walked back at night to his room in the stable house from the main house he also felt like someone or something was following him. Even with this warning we were intrigued and not worried since we had been trained as spiritualist ministers. Camp Chesterfield is famous for physical phenomena mediumship and now we have a chance to experience and learn at The Arthur Finlay College from their curriculum. We had been sitting in séances for more than ten years working with the other side and developing our own physical mediumship. So we decided that is was now time to cross the Atlantic and explore how the English teach physical phenomena.
Well upon arriving on our cross Atlantic flight I had a slight head cold and as we waited to check in after being up for more than twenty four hours I became sicker. It would be the next day that we were able to check in the Arthur Finlay College. Upon arriving in the lobby, we noticed that the stairwell leading up to their psychic museum and on to our dorm looked exactly like the television show called: “Dark Shadows”. As you climb up the stairs you are heading towards the diamond paned glass windows, surrounded by the beautiful wood paneling and even the walls were red just like the home in “Dark Shadows” where the Collins family lived. As we passed through their Psychic museum we noticed that they have two of the famous Bang Sisters portraits. This made us feel more at home since Camp Chesterfield has the largest psychic museum in the world and the Bang Sisters were resident mediums. The largest collection of the Bang sister’s precipitated portraits hang in the museum at Chesterfield.
As we continuing down the hallway we found that there were many fire doors to pass through on our way to the dorm. The building had burned many years ago and fire doors were put in place. All of the rooms have stately paintings, antique furniture all leading to the women’s dorm where the only beds left were by two large windows over looking the front lawn. On either side of our twin beds were two closets for our suit cases and things. The furniture is antique and you feel like you are staying in a castle. The pictures and rooms for classes are enormous. This college is truly one of the most beautiful spiritualist schools ever. It was once King Henry the seventh’s former manor house. The food in the cafeteria is great and the grounds and gardens are spectacular. They have redwoods and an ancient tulip tree with apparitions that have appeared in photographs for years. The famous tulip tree was outside our window and the lawn is perfectly manicured and we even had a pheasant run across the lawn every morning as we were waking up. There are horses and a lake with a giant Lebanese Cedar on the backside of the house. It was our first night on the grounds with classes starting in the morning. We would begin with trance circles, transfiguration circles, table tipping and learning about mediumship. They informed us that the college pub would be open at 9:00pm every evening until l:00 am for students and faculty. We knew from this announcement that not many serious students would be in these classes. Pickling your liver at the local pub will not produce ectoplasm. Anyone who trains for physical mediumship knows that energy is drawn from the liver and spleen and it needs to be clean of alcohol and one must have the right ph balance to produce ectoplasm which is basically an alkaline diet. Well we checked out the pub since we were on the grounds and our mother was staying around the corner at the Hilton to find the drinkers and smokers hanging out not preparing for the next day. We had some tea and off to our rooms where we would have to be quiet because of the two other women staying in our room. By 2:00am I could not breathe as my cold was becoming a broccoli infection and with my lovely coughing I had to unlock the door and proceed down to the bathroom and steam it up to get enough air. Every night I went to stay in the steamy bathroom from 2am until 6am to breath and cough because I was disturbing those who were trying to sleep. No sooner than I left the two ladies were suddenly awoken by the spirit of a man standing over them touching them. They would scream every night as spirit would be touching them as soon as they dosed off. As I finally drifted off to sleep one evening for a few minutes I awoke to the spirit of a woman singing over me. There was no peace in the room once the lights went off and there was a heaviness I felt that I have never experienced anywhere else. As we would take our mother back to the hotel at night after dinner I felt better. As I returned to the grounds I got worse and had difficulty breathing, I figured from the astrological chart of the school that I must have died in this building in a former life because I could not get enough air. By the third night after leaving my mom at the hotel I asked my sister to sit with me downstairs in the lobby before returning to our room and see if we could hear or see any spirits around the stairwell. It was beautiful and quiet and I did not want to go back to our room. We said the Lord’s Prayer out loud and asked spirit if they could hear us and would they please respond. Well they responded immediately with a full apparition on the landing of the stairwell. It was the spirit of a woman who screamed with a shrill voice. We got our message and knew it was time to return to our room. As we passed the landing where the apparition appeared there was the wonderful fragrance of rose she had brought us. We have experienced this many times in our séances with our teachers at Camp Chesterfield and it was very healing and powerful. Once again I tried to be quiet and lay down but I could not get enough air and had to return to the bathroom. By the fourth day we found out that the women’s dorm had been the morgue for the area during World War II. By the fifth day I begged my mom to take me to the doctor and I never ask to see a physician. I felt better the minute we got in the car and left the premises. Seven years later I returned to the college on a spiritualist retreat with others who trained with me at Camp Chesterfield. Luckily, I was only there for the day and this time I did not have trouble breathing. When I went to a trance session at Camp Chesterfield I asked my guide Dr. Bailey if I had been man living at the estate in Stansted in a former life. I had many dreams while there of a man who was a Baron and I felt it was me. I also felt as though I had died there. He replied that I was indeed a man and member of the royal family and did not believe I could get the flu that was going around since I was royalty. I did get it and died in the very house that is now The Arthur Finlay College. This is truly a haunted manor house and has wonderful courses for anyone interested in spiritualism. So if you have been longing to get away to the English countryside and meet people from around the world while being visited nightly by ghosts this is definitely the place to be.
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