If you are a seasoned paranormal investigator, you may have heard of an experiment called the Human Pendulum. This very controversial method of communicating with spirits has been around for a while. It entails an investigator being used to communicate with the spirit, the spirit will push the investigator one way for yes and the other way for no. Now the true way that this really works is if the person that is being used as the communication device has noise canceling headphones playing some sort of music or sound so they cannot hear what is being said and on top of that be blindfolded. This is almost like the Estes method, where you are separated from what is going on around you. This allows for sterile conditions when asking questions.
Now people will say “If a spirit can move a person one way or another while asking questions, then why can they not move doors or other objects?” Now this is a very good question, the answer to that is this, it is believed that the spirits use the energy from the subject that they are moving. To be honest with you, up until April of this year, I was one of those skeptics. The problem with the paranormal science community is that it is still new and people are trying to make names for themselves. Like any science, you will have pseudoscience and people who will swear by certain methods, that truthfully don’t work or are very questionable. Don’t get me started about SLS and how I think that is an extremely flawed tool.
How it started is Brittany and Lisa were the ones asking the questions while Coal, Zoey, and I each had a turn in the middle. We each wore a blindfold and had noise canceling earbuds playing thunderstorm sounds. Coal went first, before they got a chance to start, we had one of our cameras just stop recording for no reason. The whole night we had issues where devices would stop working or batteries would die for no reason. The spirits were quick to start interacting with the group, Brittany asked if it was someone living here and it was quickly a no. Then we asked if it was someone who worked there, and they said yes. Granted this was done in the same building where part of the murder suicide had happened. For those of you who don’t know, in August of 2009, an employee shot one of his coworkers in a drug related killing and then turned around and took his own life.
We were in the administration building of the campus which was part of the original tuberculosis hospital built in the early 1900s. During this time thousands of people came to Rockville, Indiana to seek treatment for an almost certain death sentence. There was at one point at 400 person waiting list to get into the building. It then closed down at the end of the tuberculosis pandemic, it was then bought and turned into a nursing home until it closed in 2011 due to losing funding and their license to operate as a medical facility. They literally abandoned the building, leaving personal items and medical records behind. You can actually go in rooms and there is still clothes and other personal items. In the morgue, there are thousands of medical records and charts just sitting there. All of this can explain why so many spirits are still trapped inside this medical facility.
Now people can still say that this is staged or that it’s not real but after my experience, it is 100% real, especially after Brittany and Lisa decided to make me wait before asking questions. I invite those who do not believe this is a legitimate communication method to actually give it a shot and experience it for yourself. Go to Waverly Hills or Indiana State Sanatorium, and ask these questions because you will get answers to your questions but the sad thing is, you will leave with more questions. There is always going to be people who are skeptics and will dismiss this method or even paranormal science as fake.
As paranormal investigators, our bodies are some of the best tools that we can use during an investigation. Using our senses is very important when it comes to the paranormal, you can feel the energy especially when spirits want to use physical contact as a method of communication. This has happened both times to me while investigating at Indiana State Sanatorium. I have been touched, pushed, grabbed, and hit while investigating. You can definitely pick up on the presence of the spirits there.
Now Coal at one point felt pushed, hard, when nobody was even touching him. The whole time this is going on, I am sitting here trying to process the whole thing. I had never been part of an experiment like this and to see it first hand was amazing. During the session, when Coal was pushed really hard, I snapped a photo at the same time that it happened, and I caught what appeared to be an orb, right by his head. Was this the spirit that was communicating with us trying to manifest itself or was it just a random piece of dust? Looking through all the photos during the session, you can see what are orbs but you can also see dust. I feel that I did capture the spirit that was communicating with our group. Indiana State Sanatorium has sat empty for 11 years after many years of neglect and abuse, I think these spirits were lonely in life and now that they have passed, they are extremely lonely. Just begging for someone to communicate with them. Coal’s time stopped when something hit his right leg, if you watch the video his leg just buckles for no reason. He immediately stopped the experiment because he started to feel uncomfortable and honestly I don’t blame him.
Zoey was up next, this was her first ever paranormal investigation, she had seen them on tv but never actually got to experience them. Again the spirits were quick to start communicating with us. Zoey did not like the feeling that she was getting while doing the experiment, it was a very uneasy feeling. She said that she felt like there were hands on her shoulders during the whole time. Brittany and Lisa had decided to stop the experiment early for Zoey due to how forceful the spirits were being with her. You could tell the mood had completely shifted.
Up next was my turn, now me being the greatest skeptic of the group, I didn’t know what to think. Brittany and Lisa had a plan though, they decided to hold off before asking questions, leaving me standing there blindfolded and not being able to hear anything. In the video of the session, you can hear me say, “Like I’m not feeling anything” but that’s because they were not asking questions but as soon as they started asking questions, I immediately felt them pushing and pulling on my body. It was the most crazy feeling I have ever experienced. While in the middle of asking questions, my digital camera which was off at the timed, started making a noise. This caused everyone to freak out and after reviewing the footage, I can see why. Why did something mess with the camera? Was there a negative energy that didn’t want us to ask questions?