The Ghosts Next Door

In this first episode of Curious Explorers, veteran paranormalist and historian Kathy Kelly and psychologist Traci Stein discuss and debate, is the house next door to the infamous site of the “Manson Family” murders haunted by the victims? Or is something else going on there?

Does trauma make it more likely that spirits will haunt a site?

Can ghosts haunt two or more sites at the same time? 

Does a person’s psychology survive death?

Are spirits bound by any particular rules or laws about where they can go?

Background:

On August 9, 1969,  Charles Manson’s followers brutally murdered actress Sharon Tate and four others (Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski, and Steve Parent) in a house on Cielo Drive in Los Angeles.

That house was subsequently torn down, but another house was later built on the lot next door. This house has reportedly been the site of numerous incidents of ghostly phenomena, including unnerving EVPs (electronic voice phenomena), objects moving on their own, light anomalies, unexplained temperature swings, and more. 

The house in question has also been investigated by a number of paranormal groups, including those featured on TV shows like “Ghost Hunters” and “Ghost Adventures.”

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(Theme song, “The Paranormal is Real,”  by Leonell Cassio)

Transcript

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You could make the argument that maybe they're not haunting that particular location. Maybe it's a broadcast. And that's just the radio that pick them up, you know, which would make a whole lot more sense to me, then that they're like, Oh, the house is gone. Let me go over to this house. Who's to say that Sharon Tate's murder isn't, you know, broadcasted three mile radius, and this guy just happens to have the right radio tower. I know that the paranormal is real. I everyone, welcome to curious explorers. I'm Tracy Stein. I'm here with my fabulous co host Kathy Kelly. I'm sure you've probably heard of her. She is a veteran paranormal list and the owner of paranormal books and curiosities in the paranormal Museum in fantastic Asbury Park, New Jersey. Kathy, you've been on a number of paranormal shows Amy Bernie's podcast, a whole bunch of other travel channel and other TV shows dead files, right? I was. Yeah, I've been on those shows. Dead files. I wasn't on but I did. I did a couple of their cases. In other words, I delivered the cases to them. But yeah, I've been on most of them in some way that the guy on travel channel. There's another guy for some reason I'm having senior moment, but I know that. Yes. Yeah. Not him. Okay, then then it's good that I was having that senior moment. Yeah. But anyway, I'm Traci Stein. I'm a psychologist and a formerly closeted paranormal list, but have had experiences our entire lives. And we've been talking. And we really wanted to bring our professional expertise to have a fresh take on a lot of the things you and I are both interested in UI, Kathy and everybody listening. So on curious explorers, we will explore the whole gamut history, mysteries, hauntings, other paranormal things, and more. And of course, we want to hear from you what you want to hear about and what you think. But Kathy, I've been really dying to talk to you about something that you know, has come up a lot, but I don't think people talk about it a lot. And that is our ghosts just like us, like ghosts are people too. And the second part of that is, what's the deal with ghosts next door? In other words, ghosts haunting something that isn't where a trauma happened, like haunting something nearby or adjacent or whatever, because I'm assuming you've heard of that phenomenon. Right. And I think it's a very common phenomena, especially more recently, especially as the paranormal has become more popular. And by popular I probably should say more mainstream. The Paranormal has always been very popular. to your first question, what are ghosts? I would say that the jury is still out on that. I think that ghost is a term that is kind of used as a blanket to cover, I would say that covers more experience than maybe a thing or a phenomena. Right. Lloyd, our back has a great quote, you know, he's an old school paranormal researcher, who probably doesn't get enough credit, and certainly kind of missed out on the the kind of popularization of paranormal phenomena. But honestly, those of you who are interested in the paranormal probably are familiar with his work. He's still very, very active. But he made and I'm paraphrasing this, he made the statement that ghosts are 100%, real 100% proven factually, empirically. They exist. However, what they are, is still open to debate. Right? So are they you know, are the experiences that people have? Is that some kind of psychological phenomena? Is that some kind of residual energy is that some kind of hallucination people are having these experiences, but what they are is still very, very much open to debate. And I would say that that's probably true, and probably something that needs to be taken case by case. Right. As far as the ghost next door phenomena. I definitely think that that's something that has to be looked at individually, in case by case, I would look at the last part of your statement, where you said where trauma has occurred. And I would look at that and kind of focus in on that the vast majority of of hurtful experiences that I've been privy to that have been brought to me that I've investigated that I've collected any kind of evidence on or, or had any kind of phenomena associated with the vast majority is not trauma based, right? It's not true. It's not negative. It's not it's not pain induced. However, I would say the vast majority of ghosts next door are right so most mostly it's almost as if people want to remember the event that occurred and when the location is not there. They then move to the to the next area. and almost invite in phenomena. Now, whether or not the phenomena is based in the traumatic Act, or based in the observer. I think that that's something like I said that you have to look at case by case. One of the cases that I often think of is the Sharon Tate murder, the one year guaranteed murder. That is one of those cases where the location where Sharon Tate and the people that were killed with her, were murdered was destroyed, right. So so the location was was torn down. About 12 or 13 years ago, somebody purchased the building next door came to actually one second because I, I don't want to take for granted that everybody listening is familiar with the Charles Manson, the Manson family. So for those of you who are not familiar with the Sharon Tate murder, it's more widely known as the Manson Family murders were a cult leader, Charles Manson ordered his followers to murder people at a location in Los Angeles. He actually didn't intend for them to murder of Sharon Tate and the people. JC Bree was there. The people who were in that particular house, they actually went to the wrong address, but they ended up killing Sharon Tate, who was Roman Polanski director up and coming in very well known director Roman Polanski's wife. She was also a very gifted actress in her own right was up and coming had had just recently had some successes in film. She was nine months pregnant. The crime that was committed was absolutely horrific. The murder was extraordinarily violent, she begged for her life and the life of her child. After they killed her, they took her blood and wrote different things on the walls. And the people who killed her were I think it was four young women, all under the age of 23. And a young man who was I think, 27 years old. And just to interject, this was 1969. Right? Charles Manson was considered a very charismatic person. He had been institutionalized or imprisoned for probably half of his life. By the time he was released, he had a very, reportedly very magnetic, seductive, spellbinding quality to him. And actually, he had inserted himself into Hollywood elite circles at the time, and followed him believed he was like a manifestation of the historical Jesus. And they needed him as such. He they did, and I think though, it's overstating a little bit his, how charismatic he was, because he appealed to a very specific type of person, right, he had attempted to become a musician believes he was was was going to be incredibly successful. And actually, one of the members of the Beach Boys had listened to his work and thought he was somewhat talented. But upon listening to the remainder of of the album that he was working on, just thought, you know, this guy's kind of like OneNote. He's not very, very techie. He's not very talented, and started to disconnect from him. The thing about him, the thing about Manson at the time that he was able to do was he was able to get drugs, right. So he had some talent in the sense that he could play guitar, he he was charismatic, to particularly young people who were disenfranchised young people who had been kind of who didn't have family units, the typical kind of people who are victimized by these types of cult leaders are these types of like, you know, Messiah Complex guys. But the reason why he was able to get in to an a very low level, some, some people in the entertainment industry was because he was very easy. He had a lot of pot, he had a lot of hallucinogenics. And he was free with them. Yeah, he was very free with them. Just a disclaimer, by the way, lots of people use all kinds of substances and don't do something like this. This was right. Right. Stunning for them. It would be stunning now in the worst. But yeah, the point though, is is not necessarily they may have been on drugs, they may not have been on drugs, I don't necessarily think drugs were the the the impetus for this. It was just the gateway for him to get into these elites, which was he was able to provide them with recreational drugs. He thought those relationships were much more powerful than they were. And when they cut them off, he became extremely angry. And so he actually sent his people to to kill the people he thought lived in the house that was there. Those people had moved. And I think they were actually like, it was two houses down or something like that. So So these young people ended up killing, I think, was it six people that night? It was Abby Soldier, her boyfriend, JC Bree, Sharon Tate and her unborn child. And unfortunately a guy that just was in the wrong place at the wrong time he was in a car that it pulled down the wrong road. He literally was lost and ended up getting killed. And it's a horrific scene. And I think from a pop cultural standpoint, I think most people are familiar at least with the names right of it, Charles Manson, the Manson call the Manson family. The night I think it took them about two to three hours to actually commit all the murders. incredibly violent, incredibly depraved, with absolutely no, you know, no remorse. But the location, right, the location immediately became almost globally known, you know, the, the location of, of, of where the Manson murders took place was, you know, this was news that that went around the world. This was one of those crimes of the century that is left an indelible mark on the it's certainly the American culture, but not just remember Roman Polanski, the husband of Sharon Tate was an internationally known director. He was from Poland, he lived in France, the tale of the murderer, kind of stayed in the focus people, you know, stayed in people's minds for decades. And then the location of the murders was destroyed. And several years ago, somebody purchased a lot of land that was next door to the location where the murders had taken place. I think it was like 150 feet away. So it was like the next car. Not crazy, far very far. Not very far, but not the place. Right? Not very far, but not the place. And people did live there for for a while, without recording phenomena. And then another person purchased the house and moved into it. And he claimed to start experiencing phenomena almost immediately, I think he actually initially believed he was connecting with Jay Sebring, versus with Sharon Tate. And then a couple of television shows went in and and did some investigating there. And that was the basis for all of the evidence that we have, right, it was almost as if I started to have this experience. I called it a TV show. And that's not me. You know, I'm not maligning that I'm not saying that that's a negative. But there was not a ton of experiences prior to that. I mean, that we know what we're that were reported, right, that were reported to the reason, because I saw I remember seeing those TV shows, too, that you were mentioning. And I mean, I have to say like usually watching these TV shows, I don't get freaked out at all, because it's, it's there's a distance, right? But you can hear EVPs that sound like a woman's voice. They sound frightened and cleaning. I remember, I wish I could find the clip, I'm going to look for a link to a clip of this show. If it's if it's still out there. You know, you could see thermometers droppings in response to a request to do so you know, if anybody's here, people workers couldn't work at the site when the house was being constructed, because people got so freaked out. And that leads me to my question. First of all, let's distinguish between what I mean by ghosts versus spirits, because I think we're all spirits, right? But I think of ghosts is somebody who's intelligent and lingering, different from residual different from we pass away and we evolve, right? I mean, just for argument's sake for this discussion, if we just think of ghosts as something conscious, but hasn't moved on. And the reason I think that is an important way to define it, is because the question is, how do we need to think about ghosts? To understand why they would maybe haunt a nearby location? What do they want out of that? To me? I think the first thing is, you're making the presumption that this is actually happening, right. So we're making, you know, we're saying, Okay, this is happening. To me. That's a huge jump. Right. That's a huge, that's a huge thing to say. But accepting that it is, it's been, it's been a massive leap, to then say it's Sharon Tate, or LaBianca or JC right? You know, I mean, if you didn't know that the murder had taken place next door, would you just assume that something else had happened on that location and not made? The presumption that it's related to like, in other words, maybe it's not the ghost next door? Maybe it's the ghost from here. You don't I mean, and maybe it's a somebody who died in childbirth and is crying or like, in other words, I think it's very difficult to ever know who you're speaking to, or who is communicating or who is present? I think sometimes we take the historical phenomena that we that we know, and assign it to the phenomena or the historical event that we know and assign it to the phenomena that we're experiencing. But it could be any of the 100 other families that have lived there, you know, other than Shark Tank. So I'll tell you why I'm making that presumption one to kind of discuss it this way. I think it's a good shortcut. But the the other thing is more importantly, I remember watching whatever ghost hunting team did the investigation, the questions that they were asking, and the answers that they were getting, seem to indicate that it was likely that the people that they were talking to were in fact, the ones responding. But the other thing is, it relates to the idea of, because like, I don't think most people linger. I think people have to have a reason for lingering, like, whether they're alive, or whether they're not alive. And as we talked about a few minutes ago, trauma, trauma makes living people stay in situations that are horrible, because they keep reenacting it till they understand how to get out of it. And I have to assume I'm making the assumption for this conversation, right, that that event was so traumatic, that I don't think it's actually a hugely, you know, right. Okay. But see to me, and I'll specifically say I chose this because I think this is a convenient haunting. Right. So I look at this, and I think this is a convenient, haunting and a way to I'm not I'm not, I'm not saying it's falsified. I'm not saying it's fake. I'm not saying it's very convenient, right. So I look at this, and I think the first person you call does a television show, right? They didn't release her, you know, they didn't do anything to try and mitigate it. Right. They see now doing it exclusive. But I mean, when you ask questions, you can ask questions in such a way that you that, you know, the answers, you know, like, like, I guess my issue with fate, specifically with famous hauntings. Right? Is, why didn't Why didn't she go to the other house? Now, there may be a reason, right? But there's houses all along there. So So did she go there? Because it was invested being investigated? Did they go there? Or was this Purely Residual, you know, I'm saying, like, I have to look at the motive of the person that's also promoting the haunting, and whether or not and listen, I'm someone who does this professionally. So I don't have a problem with people doing that. It's it's very similar to the Lizzie Borden thing that's happening now where, you know, Lizzie board, Lizzie Borden house in Massachusetts has a reputation for being haunted. Having been there, I actually think it is, you know, I think that there's activity there. But now Maplecroft, which was the house that she moved into years later, is also purported to be haunted. By her, I just say, when I look at things like that, and the commercialization of paranormal stuff, I have to call into question, motives as well, with the Sharon Tate, there are other houses. So I would be curious, is the entire area, you know, is that heard in the entire area? Or what a spirit go where it's going to be heard? You know what I'm saying? That is what I think. And I think people living or not have different reasons why they seek out specific people, or situations. And that's kind of my point about our ghost just like us, what do they want? Why would you haunt an adjacent place? Why one place and not another? I have some thoughts on that I wanted to kind of share with you and get your your input on. Because, you know, one thought is, like you just alluded to, are you going to this other place because someone will actually a be able to hear you. Like maybe they're they're psychically open enough to do that. And somebody else won't be, they might be either upset enough or interested enough to seek to understand more or hear what you have to say, you know, I don't know, I think everybody is generally looking for something they either want fame, they want to be heard, they want to be understood. They want to be held to they want to warn someone and all of those things can apply. When there's a traumatic thing. The only other thing related to all that is you know, spirits aren't bound. I'm sure everybody be like well done, but really they're not bound by the physical structures we are. So maybe property lines which are just you know, what legal or property divisions and walls. Don't restrict them? I don't know. But also I don't think I linear time. Right. Oh, but in that case, Tracy, why go next door. Why not go to the White House? You don't I'm saying like not i relevant to maybe people wouldn't think to even check it out if the context nearby but I think I don't know what to know. And I don't either, right. I don't either. And I mean, I, I'm surrounded by artifacts that have a reputation for being haunted. I don't understand how that happens either, you know, and and I'm, I'm not a person who's it happens, you know, I mean, it happens to me the thing about something specific, something very specific will say to this particular case is I just don't think we always know who the spirit is, I think we jump to, we jumped to conclusions. And so I would say, it is sexy. That that's Sharon Tate. It is really interesting. If that's Sharon Tate, it is really exciting, if that's guaranteed, while I rotate magazine, or any of that, but it's it's it engages you it is riveting, different way. And if you don't know who that actually is, I mean, I mean, you know, we had a case, actually here in this location, where not too long ago, where we you heard that the EVP that we got the EVPs that we got, which were really, really compelling. And they really made, you know, I'm still not 100% sold on who is saying that, even though they're telling me that that's that I go a little bit far in that direction, because I've been tricked. You don't I mean, I've been in I've done investigations where we believe we were moving down one avenue, and, and it we've been wrong. But I do think you're I mean, I think there's something to be said for people because people ask me that all the time. If you tear down the house, where's the spirit go? And I usually think well, the house doesn't get torn down for the spirit. Right? You know, like you said, spirits or ghosts are not limited by the physical confines, but they are limited by their perceptive confines. And generally speaking, in my experience, if a spirit is not in visitation, but if a spirit is actually bound, they are are not cognizant of their own ability to communicate beyond that. Right. So they have, by the way, absolutely, I Well, I always say, you know, I always say Do you ever have Have you ever been around someone who's who's gone through a bad breakup? You know, and they just can't seem to move on. You don't see the avenues to move on until you see the avenues to move on. And Hans Holzer actually coined the phrase the addled brain dead, which is what he considered spirits. Who were earthbound spirits that that were stuck here. I don't think all spirits are stuck here. I think spirits really go as they please. I would argue, though, that a spirit that is lingering in its neighbor's house is probably not here in visitation. It's probably I would also say, you could make the argument that maybe they're not haunting that particular location, maybe it's a broadcast, and that's just the radio that picked them up, you know, which would make a whole lot more sense to me, then that they're like, Oh, the house is gone. Let me go over to this house. You know what I'm saying that, that they're just they have, and Spirits, ghosts, you know, the paranormal exists within nature. So there's some defines. They have rules. We don't know what they are. But there's some rules. There are some and maybe they're self imposed, maybe, maybe different spirits have different powers or different strengths of broadcasts. But who's to say that Sharon Tate's murder isn't, you know, broadcast at three mile radius, and this guy just happens to have the right radio tower? To, to to, you know, to pick it up? I picked Sharon Tate because the Sharon Tate murder because I think it's kind of one of those famous adjacent hauntings. But also because it is questionable, right? Where you do you have to call in motives. I do know of cases where where people have died in apartments, and they're seen in the apartment next door. And to me, that is very much where they want to be seen. You know, we're, we're a lot of times that's unfinished business, you know, or if there is someone still in the apartment where they passed, that person is either too grief stricken to receive a message or something along those lines. But I mean, I think, you know, we have to look at our phrasing and our use of the word haunting. Right. So, being in visitation being present is not necessarily haunting, you know, haunting is something that is is continuous and is not related space. difficulty to say, unfinished business or it's more of a residual kind of thing. So let me just say, I think whether I would use the term haunting would be, it would be dependent on the person receiving the message, right? Because you're, you're a medium, and there's a Spirit coming to you more frequently. Maybe you're just saying what this person needs, you know, wants somebody to hear what they have to say. If you're a person who's scared to death, maybe you're like, I'm being haunted, and my house is haunted. Right? There's so many questions that come up around this. The other thing I wanted to say, and there's so many shows that we could do just kind of adjacent to this is that I don't think spirits, I don't think we are bound by linear time in the way we think we are. But I'm not a physicist. I can't articulate that very well. But I mean, spirits, you know, why would a spirit, go to someone, I'm going to, I'm going to take it away from the Sharon Tate thing for a moment. Look at the two of us, you and I have had experiences, I've had experiences since I was a toddler. And they scared the crap out of me. But I don't think decades later, I wouldn't be doing this if I hadn't had those experiences for one reason or another, and they made an impact on me. So kind of spirit necessarily say, Well, you're not going to do anything about it. Now. Now, it's not going to have meaning to you. But I can see down the line that if I want to get a message through either about me, or I want to get a message through generally, that down the line, this person will be someone who will pursue this, who will be interested or who may look into it deep, more deeply, or give voice to what I'm trying to say, You know what I'm saying? No, I do know what you're saying. I, you know, I think you and I look at things where we approach things very differently, right? I can only speak to my experience, and I don't really, as much as I can see that. From a philosophical standpoint, I think I look at things more along the lines of, of personal evidence, you know, what I mean of gathering personal evidence, that's a very broad view for me, or a very, very far view for me to kind of take, which is to say, it's entirely possible for someone to have to play the long game like that. I guess, when it comes to my experiences, they're always more in the immediacy, like when people come in to talk to me about something, it's because this thing is happening, or this thing has happened. And it's usually very, very specific to, you know, to a family member or to a person or to to an individual. But you and I have talked about that philosophically, a lot. I think that because I do more fieldwork in this, you know, I think I have, and because I've spent a lot of time with people who have made claims of paranormal phenomena around them that that has just not panned out, kind of the way people have have expressed it, that I'm a little bit more, it's definitely just skeptical, because I'm not I'm not skeptical of the phenomena. I might be skeptical of the case. You know, I think that's good. But that's why when we talk about, like, what is a haunting, or something like I have a definition of haunting, kind of like, you might have a definition of like, you know, mental illness or or that's a very vague phrase, but But you know, something where we're like, I might say, Hey, that guy psychotic, but But you know, what, the actual definition of psych Yes, yes. Whereas, as I, and not to split hairs on it, but like, I guess to go back to your original question is, is, you know, if we accept that ghosts are what you defined, ghost says, and in different cases, I'll use a different word, you know. But yeah, I mean, ghosts are people without bodies, that's what they are. If they're Earthbound, meaning that they're here, and they cannot leave. I would say, it's because they've had some kind of emotional, there's some kind of trauma that they need to overcome. If they're here and what I would consider visitation or a choice to be here. I think it's like anybody else, you know, I think they're on vacation, I think they can pop in and pop out. And they can do that for a very, very long time. I also think that energy is more fibrous than we think it is. And so I think that people's energy can be in multiple places that at the same time, and, and little pieces of them can be here. Somebody one time, a medium friend of mine, one time described it as the cub Halloween cobwebs, you know, like, like, it's not the full, it's not the full spirit, but it's it's kind of, you know, a fingerprint of it, or a little piece of it that's still there. And so it can still be very impact. folinic can still be recognizable. And I would say that maybe in a case like, specifically the Sharon Tate place where, where Remember, you're not only talking about the events of that night, you're talking about 50 years of people going back to that location as if on pilgrimage, and 50 years of people focusing on that name focusing on that event, you know, putting their energy into what they believe happened there. And a lot of people would say, There's no way Sharon Tate doesn't want this place. Because the tragedy was so great. There's something to be said, for the energy that belief and faith puts out there as well. You know, the concept of Tulpas the concept of thought forms the concept of, of manifestation, which is, it could be a spirit, it could be energy, that is utilizing the information that our continuous interest in it is putting out there. And not necessarily her, you know, I mean, and I realized that that's going down a rabbit hole, but hey, you know, In for a penny in for pounds, you know, it's, it's once we start getting into that, you know, it's just as likely. So great points. Kathy, I think there's a lot more for us to explore in this kind of general realm. What I want to do is we need to make a trip out to LA to visit Sharon. I'm curious, let's go. Yes, we'll do some curious exploring. So if you have thoughts, what do you think are ghosts people just like us? What do you think? Do you have questions? Do you have comments? Are we going in the right direction with this? Is there something else you want to explore it? Let us know? Leave us a comment, share what you think. And if you like the show, please do like, share and follow. It really helps us continue bringing interesting and mysterious content to you. So until next time, I'm Tracy Stein. I'm Cathy Kelly. And we'll see you on the next episode of curious explorers.