What is it about that place?

We took a lot of road trips in college.  It was not uncommon for us to leave the dorms around 8PM on a Saturday and find ourselves in Niagara Falls or the Syracuse area in an hour or so.  One cool October evening, my roommate, Liz, decided she wanted to pay an old friend of hers a visit.  I rode shotgun, and our mutual friend Rich* tagged along in the back seat.  We drove through rural western New York to a darkened house on a deserted road and parked near a barn.  The only illumination came from a weak mercury-vapor lamp on a pole.  Liz promised she would be right back, and disappeared into the barn.  It was unremarkable as barns go, red and boxy.  But something about it didn't feel right.  The woods beyond the barn looked blacker that Nietzsche's abyss.  Rich voiced the thought that consumed my own mind.

"This place is creepy," he said.  I agreed with him.  My memories of what was said are hazy, but it seems like we discussed the topic at length while Liz spent more time than necessary establishing that her friend wasn't home.  When she got back in the car, Rich commented on it.  Only then did Liz inform us that she'd brought us to a place that was violently haunted.  Her friend frequently heard voices in the barn, and once experienced banging on a door that lead up to a second story.  Whoever - or whatever - was pounding on the door, slammed it with such force that the wood bowed outward.  Nearly a century ago, the barn was used as a dance hall, and dozens of revelers had carved their names into the walls, leaving small reminders in the wood of those that had come before.

It was the names that creeped me out the most.  For years, I wouldn't understand why.  Now I think I have an idea.  In Voodoo and Hoodoo, a written name can stand in as a place holder for a person.  Anything from curses to love spells involve writing a name on a piece of paper, and what you do to that name depends on what you want to do to that person.  At the center of this belief is the idea that a little of our personal energy appears on the paper that bears our name.

I believe that objects and places do have energy, just as humans have a certain energy.  We've all know someone who exhausts us with their mere presence.  Perhaps we've visited a place that creeps us out, or tires us out, or inspires us.  I don't always get sick when I travel, and I understand how visiting a place full of germ laden tourists can expose someone to the common cold.  I've noticed a trend, however.  Every time I visit Salem, MA, I come home with a cold.  Recently, I was in New Orleans.  We switched hotels halfway through our trip, from one in the French Quarter to one in a much more modern part of the city.  Within a day of that move, I had a sore throat and the sniffles. 

This idea isn't original to me.  Many people believe in the energy of ley lines.  When the idea was first conceived in the 1920's, these lines were simply the connection between sites of historic significance.  In the 60's, author John Mitchell ascribed a spiritual energy to these lines, and the idea struck a chord with the New Age community.  Some believe that Salem, MA lies at the intersection of these lines.  I've heard a possibly apocryphal story that the Native Americans would not spend the night in the area where Salem now stands.  They would come to trade with the settlers, but believing the land was cursed, and anyone who spent the night there would lose their minds, they left before nightfall.

My account is so subjective and experiential that I'm sure I won't be convincing any skeptics.  However I find it hard to ignore my own senses.  Right now my senses are tingling.  It's almost 11PM, and my eyes are growing tired from staring at a lit screen.  Perhaps my bed lies at the intersection of two ley lines, because I'm noticing it's taken on a certain hypnotic energy.  I'm feeling sleepy, verrrrrry sleepy.

*The names have been changed to protect those creeped out by empty barns.