>More experiences with John Wilkes Booth

Posted by Jessica Jewett 3 Comments »

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Before you read this blog, you should read the first two blogs in order to have a full understanding of what has been happening to me.

The first blog: I went out with John Wilkes Booth last night
The second blog: Questions about John Wilkes Booth

Even though this has been happening for months, my various encounters with the infamous assassin, I’m still not accustomed to it, nor do I understand why I’m on the receiving end of these occasional visits. Every time it happens, I usually think to myself, “That was probably the last time,” but then some time passes and then another encounter happens. There is never any warning. It happens as fast as the blink of an eye and even my family is beginning to notice his presence.

The main thing I’m noticing is that if I’m not devoting enough time to writing about the subject that brought on his initial visits, which is a narrative that seems to paint him in a more human way, his energy gets more pushy and present in my home. I’m still investigating other possible causes of this particular phenomena, but in the last couple of months, I have been hearing knocking on the support beam next to my bed. It always happens when I have turned off the television and I’m ready to go to sleep and it is extremely annoying. It’s loud enough to keep me awake. I get so annoyed that I have to eventually yell, “Stop it!” Sometimes it does stop. Sometimes it doesn’t. Normally I don’t jump right to the paranormal conclusion because I’m so used to trying to find alternate explanations, so if I don’t see an immediate natural cause, I think it must be some kind of pipe or something making that noise. It wasn’t until it was complying with my verbal commands that I started to wonder if it was paranormal in nature. What led me to believe that it might be John Wilkes Booth was that this is not a behavior Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain has never exhibited, nor is it a behavior that any of my other entities have exhibited either. So the logical conclusion is the new sound goes with the new entity. The incidences also seem to coincide with long periods of time in which I have not written anything about his story.

It’s one thing for one person to experience paranormal phenomena are related to a “famous” entity. People could say they’re just making it up or they’re misinterpreting natural things or it’s wishful thinking or any number of alternate explanations. Even for me, I don’t give as much credibility to ghostly encounters described by people in which there are not more witnesses to it. So when my mother started coming to me in describing strange phenomena happening to her, I really started to feel it sink in that this is really happening and I’m not crazy. Isn’t that funny? I have been a lifelong medium and I still go through moments of thinking I might be crazy!

There was a time when I was far too distracted to devote any time to my regular work let alone appeasing John Wilkes Booth quite recently. My knee had been injured somehow and I was concerned that it was broken. I was taking narcotic painkillers and I even visited the ER where they put me on morphine for an afternoon, which are things that deaden the ability to sense and communicate with the other side. So there were a few weeks in which I which is completely focused on myself and not concerned with doing readings for people, writing my own books, and dealing with my periodic regular visitors from the afterlife. Naturally someone who is used people falling all over themselves to get his attention is not going to like being ignored. It’s important to remember that he’s not around all the time. Not even close. I would estimate that it’s a couple of times a month. But when he is around, he wants my full and complete attention. When he doesn’t get it, he acts out and forces my attention. The problem is when I was on narcotic painkillers, nothing he could have done would have gotten my attention because it just completely makes that part of my brain go dead.

One morning my mother immediately came to me after I woke up and said quite excitedly that somebody was pacing around my bed trying to be intimidating and forceful. She said it was so strange that my dog stood in the doorway of the room where I sleep but she refused to come into the room. She was standing there looking at my bed and following an invisible figure with her eyes. My mother is a medium as well and she can tell when the incident is paranormal and she said there was definitely somebody pacing around my bed that morning. The fact that my dog seemed almost afraid of it told me quite clearly that it was not Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain or any of my other regular entities because she’s quite used to strange things happening to her mommy. And my mother kept describing the entity as “he” and “him” so she must have had some kind of indication of who it might have been.

About a week later, my mother had a day off from work, so she decided to sleep in for a morning and she came downstairs earlier than I expected. I asked her why she wasn’t in bed and she said around 7:30 that morning, she was lying on her side and two distinct fingers poked her on the hip bone and shoved her over on her stomach in bed. She thought it was my uncle, her brother, being irritating but when she looked up, there was nobody in the room with her that she could see. I realized that it was John Wilkes Booth waking her up because I checked my Ghost Radar and in the 7 AM hour, the words received were all in relation to him and things were very active.

The ghost radar is something that I have been playing with on my cell phone for several months. At first I thought it was nothing more than a joke, a game or something of that nature, but when my friend and I began experimenting with it, we realized that the incidences happening with the radar were too bizarre to be coincidental. Basically it uses your cell phone as an energy detector and assists entities in converting energy into words for communication purposes. This is not unlike other paranormal equipment of this nature. The first time I played with the ghost radar, I tried to do real-time interaction like they do in paranormal investigations by asking questions that could be answered in non-coincidental ways. It took a while for me to figure out what the energy measurements meant and how to properly use it but once I did, I started asking what entities were present in my house. Much to my surprise, it started giving me words in response to my questions. I got several names, including John, and at first the names made no sense to me until a couple of days later when I started doing some reading about him for the project I’m writing for him. I found out that the names being listed on the ghost radar were all of John Wilkes Booth’s siblings. One of the results during that session was actually the phrase “locate Asia” and even though I’m not sure what he meant by that but asking for name and getting Asia was beyond coincidental in my opinion. Asia was his sister and they were very close.

There are times when I just leave the ghost radar running while I go about my business to see what I get and most of the time nothing happens because most entities really don’t communicate during the day. Also, one cannot really expect them to be around all the time. However, I noticed that every time my friend came over for a visit, within five minutes of her coming into my house, it would say words like “plain” and various other words that described a person’s opinion of her looks and her personality. We both kind of laugh about this because it happens every time she’s here. She has rather short hair like a pixie cut and she never wears dresses and she would be considered rather plain by Victorian standards, so we both have this hunch that it’s John Wilkes Booth expressing his opinions about her since he was so used to beautiful, feminine, compliant and swooning women in his lifetime. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain nor my other entities would be so audacious as to express opinions of that nature about someone I love so much like my friend. That kind of audacity has to come from someone with an audacious personality. John Wilkes Booth. These are not just assumptions though because there are times when the word John comes up on the screen when I’m looking for identification.

My grandmother, who suffers from early stages of dementia, seems to have encountered John Wilkes Booth as well but he generally avoids her. One day I was looking at his picture and trying to get into the mindset of the female character telling the story who was very much in love with him and my grandmother passed behind me and casually said, “Oh, I saw him the other night in the bathroom. Who is he?” Dumbfounded, I turned around and looked at her like she had three heads growing out of her body because normally she doesn’t believe in ghosts – even though she really does – and when she says things like that, it completely takes me by surprise. I said, “What do you mean you saw him in the bathroom the other night?” She said she was brushing her teeth and looking in the bathroom mirror and she noticed a male figure in the bathroom doorway through the reflection in the mirror and he had dark hair, dark eyes and a mustache, and he was just standing there watching her leaning against the doorframe. She turned around because she thought it was one of Ben’s friends (Ben is my uncle) but nobody was there. I tried to remain calm even though in my head I was basically screaming, “Oh my God!” I said that was interesting as casually as she told me about it and she went on about her business. Unfortunately because of her dementia, I usually take what she says with a grain of salt unless I can have some kind of experience to back up her claims.

A couple of nights ago, I was lying in bed watching a special about William and Kate and their royal wedding because I’m a royal junkie, and lo and behold, a shadowy figure strolled out of the bathroom. I wasn’t even thinking about anything related to the paranormal at that time. I was just enjoying the fantasy of being a princess! The shadow figure startled me. I’m not going to lie. I don’t like being startled when I’m not expecting a visitor. It was very quick, like literally a second, and by the time the shadow figure got to the trashcan about 8 feet away from the bathroom door, it had completely disappeared. The shadow figure was too tall to be a woman and it was very slender in figure. Again, this is not a typical behavior attributed to Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. He does not think manifestation like that is necessary. He doesn’t like performing parlor tricks, as he has called things like that to my medium friends. I don’t typically see shadow figures. So again, I find myself logically pairing up the new form of activity with the new entity who passes through my life sometimes. It’s only logical.

I really don’t understand why any of this is happening other than the explanation I keep going back to, which is John knows I don’t completely view him as a villain. I have the ability to see through a lot of his bull and I’m very aware that he has struggled with mental illnesses in several of his lifetimes. I’m sure my capacity for sympathy is what keeps attracting him to my house. That and I used to have a very fan girl reaction to him because, truthfully, he is extremely good-looking. His ego is the size of Montana, so naturally he would really enjoy women fawning all over him. I don’t do that so much anymore because of getting to know him a little bit that I am allowed and once I start to know a man, my attraction usually diminishes by a lot. That sounds really bad! It’s true though. My interest in him has evolved into trying to help him let go of certain things so that he can move on into another lifetime without so much baggage. He has not been reincarnating and I think it’s because of fear in large part. Like most men, however, he does not seem very keen on discussing his feelings or the inner workings of his soul. By discussion, I mean the exchange of energy that allows me to know things about him. I don’t mean I’m literally sitting here talking out loud to John Wilkes Booth. I’m not. Unless he is doing something irritating like knocking on the support beam, and then I just tell him to stop it.

How long is this going to last? I don’t know. I don’t mind him passing through a couple of times a month.  My friend doesn’t mind him being insulting to her because she thinks it’s funny that he’s dead but he still passing judgment on a less than feminine woman. It’s a dysfunctional relationship but sadly it’s probably the healthiest relationship he has engaged in in a long time. At least I’m not asking him for anything other than an occasional confirmation that it is actually him. I just wish he would develop a little patience. Humility, patience, the ability to love, etc., are not exactly his greatest virtues but somehow I think, maybe a little idealistically, hanging around me sometimes my teach him some good habits to carry into his next life. Who knows? Maybe he knows something I don’t. Maybe we have known each other before in some other capacity. Again, who knows? All I know is I can’t be arrogant enough to think I have all of the answers. I’m just holding on for the ride.

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>In the garish day and in the darkest night

Posted by Jessica Jewett No Comments »

>On this day 150 years ago, Fort Sumter fell into Confederate hands. The Civil War began, ushering in four years of blood, fire, death, separation and anguish for all American people. More people were killed in those four years than all other American wars combined to date.

The scale of devastation could not be comprehended by the modern mind. Typically, I use 9/11 as a way to compare. A few thousand people were killed that day and the devastation is still felt today. It was not uncommon for casualties to be in the thousands or tens of thousand in battle after battle. The devastation was relentless and never let up for the entire war. Taking the feelings one experienced in the months surrounding 9/11 and stretching that out into blow after blow for years offers an idea of what this country endured in the Civil War.

It is the individual stories, however, that brings it home for people today. Perhaps the most compelling, famous and gut-wrenching letter of the war was written by Sullivan Ballou. I thought about posting the text of the letter here but it wouldn’t have the same affect as hearing it read out loud. Please listen to this man’s emotional words and think about what your own ancestors endured in the war.

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>What does the Civil War mean to me?

Posted by Jessica Jewett 2 Comments »

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With the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War upon us, I have been thinking quite a lot about what the war means to me personally. The anniversary has me feeling quite strange, honestly. I have been experiencing a bit of a foggy sensation, and it has me quiet, reflective, sad and apprehensive all at the same time. The bombardment of Civil War programming on television and the release if the Robert Redford film, The Conspirator, this month is starting to trigger very old feelings again. I have worked for many years to put my issues with the war to rest and I thought I had basically been successful but the bombardment of triggers often opens old wounds. I’m speaking from the perspective of being reincarnated from the nineteenth century itself, of course. I have difficulty, even now, removing myself from the war and looking at it strictly from the point of view of a contemporary historian. If you remember anything firsthand about the war, you can’t shake it off. You just can’t. It becomes part of your soul.

What does the Civil War mean to me? Quite honestly, I’m struggling to answer this question. I feel like I need to sort it out though.

A big part of me feels guilty – whether it’s my leftover feelings from that time or my present self analyzing my past self – because I was not washed over with feelings of patriotism for defending my country. I believed in the Union and I was against slavery but I was not willing to risk my family to keep the Union together. The beginning of the war was marked by a lot of struggling on my part to keep Lawrence (Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain) at home where I knew he would be safe. In present times, I watch all those documentaries with newspapers and such depicting the country being caught up in huge sweeps of patriotism and the desire to make the South pay for their rebellion and I look at it with guilt because I was not one of those people. I was perfectly okay with other people going to war. I just wanted my family left out of it.

Of course, we all know I lost the battle to keep Lawrence out of the war. He was commissioned lieutenant colonel of the 20th Maine by Governor Washburn in the summer of 1862. I was not even informed of the commission. I knew he wanted to enlist but the way I found out about the commission was as shocking as it was painful. The newspapers had gotten hold of the story before Lawrence had a chance to tell me the final plans and that was the way I found out my husband was going to war – I read it in the newspaper. Naturally, my reaction was not sunshine and roses. Our marriage had been based on a meeting of minds and intellectual partnership as much as it was a romantic love match. I enjoyed an unusual equality with my husband in everything except his career decisions, which was always a point of strain on our relationship. He had a habit of making decisions like that without including my input as much as I wanted and demanded of him. So, we fought. We fought quite a bit in his last days as a civilian. I had a terrible, sinking feeling that he was going to be killed and orphan his family. My anger toward him came from paralyzing fear.

Before he left, though, I adopted the attitude of I don’t like it but I need to support him anyway. If he was killed, I could never live with myself if his last thoughts were of causing me disappointment, anger, tears, etc. I tried to become an exemplary officer’s wife. I sewed the gold fringe on the regimental colors (a replica is pictured at right), I got to know some of the other army wives in Brunswick, and I steeled myself for raising two small children without their father. None of us knew how long the war would last. When it began, everybody thought it would be a 90 day war and by the time Lawrence got his commission, the war was already a year old. I can’t say for sure what “historical Fanny” felt, meaning I haven’t seen any documentation, but looking back on it, I felt it was going to be a long, bloody war but I never said so out loud.

During the war, it is well documented that I traveled to see Lawrence in the army camps or to care for him in military hospitals when he was ill or wounded. Apparently I saw him a lot more than other army wives did and some people in my life privately thought I was neglecting my children. Perhaps I was but it wasn’t intentional. I loved my children and I wanted to try and keep their father with them. I lived the entire war in fear that some catastrophe was going to happen and I don’t think I fully exhaled from 1862 until 1865. I think my reasoning was as long as I was near him, I could somehow protect him from being hurt, or if he was hurt, I could exert some control over his recovery. As any wife in love with her husband felt in that situation, I missed him horribly when he wasn’t home. He missed me even more. He performed his duties better and he was more focused in the times around my visits. We were always better together than apart.

I don’t have much insight into what I felt for the men he commanded. Some officer’s wives became like mothers of the regiments while others had nothing to do with the other men. I think I was somewhere in between. I feel deep empathy and compassion for other soldiers, especially those he commanded, and the feeling exists in a deep place within me that I associate with my “old” emotions. I still experience motherly instincts toward them, particularly the ones who are stuck and unaware that they were killed in action. I spent enough time in military hospitals during the war that I certainly would have helped look after the wounded in between duties of looking after Lawrence. I would have seen men with horrible wounds, limbs severed, experienced the blood and gore, and I’m certain of this because I still have periodic nightmares about it. Those images burn themselves into your soul and you carry them with you in future lives. After Lawrence was shot in 1864, we were told he was going to die and I know I was trying to frame my mind around that when I went to his bedside because of the emotional memories around that time. He lingered for months when we were expecting his death in days. He got better, he got worse, he got better, and so on. The psychological torture of having hope taken away and given back repeatedly was often more than I could bear. Eventually he did recover but he was never the same and neither was I.

Today I make a point to visit battlefields whenever possible. There is an inane sense of responsibility that I feel toward the men and woman who endured the war. I suppose the word I would use to sum up the Civil War in my experience with it is sacrifice. We all sacrificed our lives even if we didn’t physically die. The Civil War was the collective death of antiquated society and the violent birth of modern society. It set the stage for struggles to come. In the way that we all divide time now between “before 9/11” and “after 9/11”, so too did we divide time back then between “before the war” and “after the war”. I believe we were all killed in a way because we were all different people after the war ended. Many relationships of survivors didn’t survive. My own marriage hung on by a thread for years because we both were so changed by the things we endured. There were a lot of times when I felt deep resentment toward the war for forcing me to sacrifice my life and my family and those feelings still linger a bit today. On the other side of the coin, I was and am immensely proud of Lawrence, the men under his command, and all others who had the gumption to fight for their beliefs and face the very real possibility of dying for those beliefs. The mixed feelings of resentment and pride were and are confusing and the root of why I struggle to answer the question of what the Civil War means to me.

In great deeds, something abides. On great fields, something stays. Forms change and pass; bodies disappear; but spirits linger, to consecrate ground for the vision-place of souls. And reverent men and women from afar, and generations that know us not and that we know not of, heart-drawn to see where and by whom great things were suffered and done for them, shall come to this deathless field, to ponder and dream; and lo! the shadow of a mighty presence shall wrap them in its bosom, and the power of the vision pass into their souls. This is the great reward of service. To live, far out and on, in the life of others; this is the mystery of the Christ,–to give life’s best for such high sake that it shall be found again unto life eternal.

– Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

A painting of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain as an old man surrounded by the ghosts of Little Round Top.
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