The Haunted Portrait

Midsummer of this year I received an email from a dear friend of mine who explained that a possibly haunted portrait had come into her possession and did I want it? Um...yes.

She explains; "A client brought it to me thinking I could exorcise it and keep it for my office as decor. She had said that it "gave her the creeps" and that she and other people had felt a spirit connected to the portrait. At first I was inwardly skeptical, but I set the portrait down against the wall about 2 feet away from me at foot to knee level and began talking about something else. I began feeling what I can only describe as electrical emanations coming from the picture - it was like being near a tesla coil and your hair standing up - warm and electrical. I knew it was coming from the portrait and it was only hitting me from my feet to knees - at the exact level of the portrait. So, although I have worked with friendly spirits in the past, I don't want to mess with this one, not that it feels "bad" or scary necessarily, but I just have a feeling of being a little out of my league."


She left it outside her office door for me to pick up as she didn't want it inside. A couple weeks passed and Mr. Blackwood, who knew none of this and was simply asked to retrieve it on his way home from work, which he did. However, he had a very strange story for me when he arrived home with it. When he picked it up, at the moment of contact he said he felt an immediate electrical charge in his hand which continued up his arm. A kind of tingling sensation, akin to when a limb "falls asleep."

A couple days later we attended a paranormal conference where we had a booth and brought the portrait along. We hadn't told anyone about it yet but asked a psychic/medium friend of ours, Kathryn Wilson, if she would take a look at it. After contemplating it for a while she said she felt that it had quite a lot of energy attached to it belonging not to the little boy pictured, but to his mother. She was quite a stubborn lady and this being her prized possession, she didn't want to let go of it. Kathryn also stated that the thought the boy's name was Charles and that his mother didn't understand that her child had grown up and had passed on. When Kathryn tried communicating this to her, the mother was as tenacious as ever.

Hours later, another friend of ours was visiting with us at the booth and I pulled the portrait out and said, "Hey, take a look at this." Nothing more, nothing less. He had no prior knowledge of us having the portrait nor of Kathryn's comments. He immediately exclaimed that the object was giving off "tons of energy," and that a female, the mother of the child was very strongly attached to it. He also stated that the child's name was...Charlie.

Charlie currently occupies a place in my house in the living room, above the fireplace. In the next couple weeks or so, I plan on taking the portrait out of the frame in hopes something - the child's name? A date? Will be written on the back. I also am looking for a local expert in Victorian era portraiture to date it and tell me more.

I also plan on speaking to her via ITC and EVP work...hopefully, someone will respond.


Kathryn Wilson: http://web.me.com/ufojoe/psychickathryn/Kathryn_Wilson.html